« Is it legal to stamp "TAX CHEAT!" over Tim Geithner's signature on $1 bills? | Main | Beldar's take on the current SCOTUS buzz »

Monday, April 26, 2010

Headlines that seem to explain a lot

From the dead-trees version of today's Houston Chronicle, from page B5 on the continuation of an article from page B1:

Houston Chronicle headline

It turns out that the lawyer in question wasn't speaking about himself, and that "Bustamante" is actually the client. I suppose I should have known that no lawyer would have been that honest about himself/herself. No word yet, though, on the mental acuity of the Chronicle editor who wrote this headline.

Posted by Beldar at 08:00 AM in Humor, Law (2010), Mainstream Media, Trial Lawyer War Stories | Permalink

TrackBacks

Note: Trackbacks are moderated and do not appear automatically. They're also spam-filtered. Feel free to email me if yours didn't go through. Trackbacks must contain a link to this post. TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d834515edc69e20134802632a7970c

Other weblog posts, if any, whose authors have linked to Headlines that seem to explain a lot and sent a trackback ping are listed here:


Comments

(1) Mike Myers made the following comment | Apr 26, 2010 8:53:01 PM | Permalink

Okay Mr. Dyer, I'll throw in on this story--since many of your other lawyer readers have been unusually silent on the point. I'll simply say that it's been my experience that headline writers are even dumber than a few of the opposing counsel I've seen in my career.

(2) Xrlq made the following comment | Apr 28, 2010 11:12:41 PM | Permalink

Linguists deal with these fortunate or unfortunate ambiguities by adding subscripts like "i," "j," etc. to identify the referent, e.g.,

Xrlq[i] called Beldar[j] a Democrat, and then he[i] insulted him[j}

vs.

Xrlq[i] called Beldar[j] a Democrat, and then he[j] insulted him[i]

The comments to this entry are closed.