August 14, 2005

Desertion and plundering -- not!

For a moment, it looked like a scandalous story of desertion and plundering by American forces in Iraq. The headline (p. 1 of the New York Times, 8/13/05) read:

G.I.'s Deployed in Iraq Desert
With Lots of American Stuff

Oh, the noun desert, not the verb desert.

Headline writing is full of perils.

zwicky at-sign csli period stanford period edu

Posted by Arnold Zwicky at August 14, 2005 12:40 PM