Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Tab hed merge row 'widening gyre'

Might as well just turn Old Glory upside-down in the nameplate there, New York Post. No real American rimrat would have referred to the recently departed actor as "Seymour Hoffman" in a hed. Especially since none of the Post's stories on the matter seem to use anything but "Hoffman."

Why this assumption about appropriate second references for men known by three names is so British-sounding is still a mystery (and thanks to all who checked in with observations last time it came up). It does seem to work best with middle names that could go either way -- even the Sun probably wouldn't call Jim Ed Brown "Ed Brown" in heds. But apparently you guys over there think we're up to something over here that, in general, we aren't.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Ed Latham said...

Ah, the dread of the non-hyphenated double-barrelled surname. (Martha) Lane Fox. (Andrew) Lloyd Webber. Once you know they exist, the knowledge is unsettling. You can never quite forget; you see potential ones everywhere.

5:58 PM, February 05, 2014  

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