Confusing headlines

[Pabappa]

Man beat minor son while siblings were playing in the other room, locked him for days with the family dog while the whole family went on a trip, dies

The boy died, not the man.

[hwhatting]

Horrible story.
Language-wise, this is actually not a garden path or ambiguous wording, the subject-less "dies" in the end is simply grammatically wrong. I'm not a native spreaker, but I think in a non-pro.drop language like English, there should be at least a pronoun ("he") to actually make a reading possible in which the subject of "dies" is not the subject at the beginning of the enumeration. Even "he dies" would still be ambiguous, but at least compatible with the intended meaning.

[Linguoboy]

Missouri reports first case of omicron COVID-19 variant in St. Louis City (KMOV)

Even after reading the article, I still don’t know if this is the first case in all of Missouri or just the first case from St Louis City.

[bradrn]

Put down the scented candle: six steps to nail gift-giving this Christmas

For a while I thought that ‘nail’ was a noun…

[Raphael]

Put down the scented candle: six steps to nail gift-giving this Christmas

For a while I thought that ‘nail’ was a noun…

OK, I know that there are people who love being given gifts that are practically useful, but this would go a bit too far, I guess...

[Man in Space]

This, from an AML Intelligence write-up:

ANALYSIS: Inside the people smuggling gangs laundering tens of millions every month – and Germany’s role as centre of the complex web extending from China and Middle East to the UK

First, even the “ANALYSIS:” raises the question: Is the article an analysis of the stated subject, or is it an analysis of a different article on the subject (perhaps with this title)?

Next, is it:

[Inside [the people [smuggling gangs [laundering tens of millions every month] ] ] ] (inside the people who smuggle gangs with large monthly hauls)
[Inside [the people smuggling gangs [laundering tens of millions every month] ] (inside the gangs of human traffickers with large monthly hauls)
[Inside [the people [smuggling gangs [laundering tens of millions] ] every month] ] ] (a new article each month about the people who smuggle gangs)
[Inside [the people smuggling gangs [laundering tens of millions] ] every month] (a new article each month about the gangs of human traffickers)

Then—and this may admittedly be splitting hairs but it does draw a subtle distinction for me—is it:

[Inside the people. . .] and [Germany's role. . .] (two separate purviews of the investigation)
[Inside [the people. . .and Germany's role. . .] ] (two spheres of consideration with a common element)

Finally: "complex web"—Is "complex" an adjective (an intricate web) or a noun (a web of premises) here?

[Nerulent]

Not actually a headline (Pharmac is a government org in NZ):

Pharmac review faults cost focus

[fusijui]

UK man accused of running over his wife to stand trial in France (The Guardian online, 8 December 2021)

Hey, I watched Engrenages, I can almost see the reasoning.

[bradrn]

Child vaccines to be approved this week

[hwhatting]

UK man accused of running over his wife to stand trial in France (The Guardian online, 8 December 2021)

Child vaccines to be approved this week

I don't get it - what's supposed to be confusing in these?

[zyxw59]

UK man accused of running over his wife to stand trial in France (The Guardian online, 8 December 2021)

Child vaccines to be approved this week

I don't get it - what's supposed to be confusing in these?

Two possible parsings for the first one:
UK man accused of (running over his wife to stand trial in France)
UK man (accused of running over his wife) to stand trial in France

For the second one, one could mistake the headline as referring to a vaccine against children, rather than a vaccine (presumably against Covid-19) which children can take.

[hwhatting]

Two possible parsings for the first one:
UK man accused of (running over his wife to stand trial in France)
UK man (accused of running over his wife) to stand trial in France

For the second one, one could mistake the headline as referring to a vaccine against children, rather than a vaccine (presumably against Covid-19) which children can take.

I suspected that "vaccine against children" was the possible wrong reading for the second headline. So the potential wrong reading for the first is "ran over his wife in order to stand / with the goal of standing trial in France?"
Well, that's the beef I'm having with these examples - the wrong readings are so far-fetched that my brain doesn't even come up with them. I'd expect a "Confusing Headline" to be either hard to make any sense of at all, or at least the wrong reading should suggest itself first, before you get the correct reading. But that's probably a matter of taste and expectations...

[Travis B.]

Two possible parsings for the first one:
UK man accused of (running over his wife to stand trial in France)
UK man (accused of running over his wife) to stand trial in France

For the second one, one could mistake the headline as referring to a vaccine against children, rather than a vaccine (presumably against Covid-19) which children can take.

I suspected that "vaccine against children" was the possible wrong reading for the second headline. So the potential wrong reading for the first is "ran over his wife in order to stand / with the goal of standing trial in France?"
Well, that's the beef I'm having with these examples - the wrong readings are so far-fetched that my brain doesn't even come up with them. I'd expect a "Confusing Headline" to be either hard to make any sense of at all, or at least the wrong reading should suggest itself first, before you get the correct reading. But that's probably a matter of taste and expectations...

I too reacted the same way - these aren't confusing headlines at all to me.

[fusijui]

Well, that's the beef I'm having with these examples - the wrong readings are so far-fetched that my brain doesn't even come up with them. I'd expect a "Confusing Headline" to be either hard to make any sense of at all, or at least the wrong reading should suggest itself first, before you get the correct reading. But that's probably a matter of taste and expectations...

Or just less brain damage than me, though you're too polite to mention it

I agree, there's a big difference between the word salad kind of Headlinese, and ones which may or may not have some kind of double entendre; but I figured this thread was open to both ends of the range. If I should have read the instructions, I apologize.

[bradrn]

Well, that's the beef I'm having with these examples - the wrong readings are so far-fetched that my brain doesn't even come up with them. I'd expect a "Confusing Headline" to be either hard to make any sense of at all, or at least the wrong reading should suggest itself first, before you get the correct reading. But that's probably a matter of taste and expectations...

This is subjective. For ’children vaccines’ the wrong one was practically the first way I interpreted it. It was confusing for me, if not anyone else. It’s not like I thought for ages to see if the headline was sufficiently confusing for this thread — the post was made literally seconds after I saw it, because it immediately jumped out at me as being confusing.

(But also, there will be mediocre entries in any thread like this. Not every headline can be the epitome of confusability.)

[hwhatting]

This is subjective. For ’children vaccines’ the wrong one was practically the first way I interpreted it. It was confusing for me, if not anyone else.

That's a good data point. And yes, I agree it's subjective.
@fusijui: Sorry, I just felt a bit crabby yesterday.

[fusijui]

No worries, @hwhatting! I do recognize that after decades of editing-heavy jobs, I'm probably predisposed to spot possible (or 'only-on-a-technicality') ambiguities in phrasing -- which may not exist for any healthy reader

And PS: I also see the 'children vaccines' as confusing -- a lot of those editing jobs were in a medical setting -- as it looks parallel to 'polio vaccine', 'flu vaccine', 'HPV vaccine', etc. -- the expectation is that the noun in apposition is what the vaccine protects against, not the population it's been developed for. The exceptions being vaccines for non-humans ('horse vaccines', etc.), which may indicate something about kids having a liminal status

[bradrn]

Wife of US spy who fled UK to face English court over death of Harry Dunn

[Raphael]

Took me a moment to parse that. I think I got it now.

[Raphael]

From a German public radio website:

Kündigungsschutz nach Geburt soll um drei Monate verlängert werden

literally

"Legal protection against being fired after birth to be extended by three months"

Now, of course this refers to legal protections for new parents. But when I first saw the headline, a part of my brain thought "Wait, newborn infants have jobs now? From which they might get fired? Have our dystopian times really come to this?"