Cybertrivia

Ambiguous newspaper headlines which are accidentally funny

posted 1-Jun-2013
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Police Alert on Stolen Drugs - Newcastle Chronicle (Naughty police, stealing peoples drugs like
that)

Rare Flower Found On A Site A Plant, Say Developers Guardian (Duh, obviously)

Lloyds Sell Goldfish to Morgan Stanley For 1bn - Independent (I won mine at the fair, but theirs
is a credit card company)

MPs To Take A Close Look At Pornography Edinburgh Evening (Dirty Politicians)

Lord To Decide Future Next Month - Calgary Sun (Not that Lord, silly)

Report Shows Need For Paper Cuts North Wales Weekly News (The best business report on
cutting costsever)

Girl Hit By Car In Hospital Edinburgh Evening News (They really should ban cars from hospitals)

Green Light Given To Nuke Waste Dump N.W. Evening Mail (To Nuke or To Dump Nuclear
Waste, that is the question)

Police Grill Murder Suspect Queensland Times (Now thats a serious interrogation)

Robber Jailed For Shooting Dead Witness Daily Telegraph (I know some people see dead
people, Dead people can see people?).

Strikes To Paralyse Travellers Daily Mirror (Those unions really shouldnt be hitting people)

Footballer On The Mend After Fatal Car Crash Hendon and Finchley Times ( Its a miracle)

Crash Test Dummy Arms Sold For $50 Million Guardian (how much did the head go for?)

Mayor Attacks Police Watchdog Edinburgh Evening News (I wish there was a youtube video for
that)

Glass Center Visitors Go Through The Roof Sunderland Echo(Im glad the glass blowing
demonstrations have been so successful, but that sounds painful!)
French Youths Speak Their Own Language USA Today

Man In Court Over St Pauls Death Independent (Now that is what I call a cold case, I mean,
have you ever been in one of those breezy cathedrals)

Teenager Held Over Shredder Edinburgh Evening News (thats a cruel and unusual
punishment)
Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should Be Belted (Most of them probably should be,
but dont forget to strap them down first)

Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case (Ive heard of small cells, but)

Survivor of Siamese Twins Joins Parents

Iraqi Head Seeks Arms

Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms (I didnt even know there were women mushrooms)

Eye Drops off Shelf (Brilliant headline for a product recall)

Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim (I dont think the dog needed any help)

Miners Refuse to Work after Death (Even the zombies go on strike!)

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant (No that is just childish)

Stolen Painting Found by Tree (Was the reward a bag of fertilizer?)

Two Soviet Ships Collide, One Dies (And the other is alive? Thats the real news!)

Two Sisters Reunited after 18 Years in Checkout Counter (That is a very long shift, or a very clumsy
sentence)

Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Time in 10 Years (Another Zombie Headline?)

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge (I wouldnt want to be the first to cross that new bridge)

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group

2 Analysis of Ambiguity
2.1 Semantic Ambiguity
Headline:

Iraqi head seeks arms

Ambiguity type: Semantic.

Identification and explanation: The homograph "head" can be interpreted as a noun meaning
either chief or the anatomical head of a body. Likewise, the homograph "arms" can be interpreted as
a plural noun meaning either weapons or body parts.
What makes headline humorous: The headline can easily be read as a disembodied head
searching for arms (body parts) or wanting to have them attached.
Computational Resolution: The ambiguity could be resolved for a computer parser by specifying in
the lexical entry for each item its semantic features.

2.2 Lexical Ambiguity

Headline:

Teacher strikes idle kids

Ambiguity type: Lexical (part of speech or category ambiguity).

Identification and explanation: "strikes" can occur as either an verb meaning to hit or a noun
meaning a refusal to work. Meantime, "idle" can occur as either an verb or an adjective.
What makes headline humorous: The headline can easily be read as "teacher hits idle kids' even
though it was meant to mean that the walkout of teachers has left pupils idle.

2.3 Structural Ambiguity

Headline:

Stolen painting found by tree

Ambiguity type: Structural.

Identification and explanation: The headline's two alternative syntactic representations make it
structurally ambivalent:
(1) A tree found a stolen painting.
(2) A person found a stolen painting near a tree.
What makes headline humorous: The headline can easily be read as the representation in (1): A
tree found a painting, which is humorous because trees, being inanimate, generally don't find things.
Computational Resolution: Specifying in the computational lexicon that the verb "find" usually
takes an agent with the property [+animate].

Police chase driver in hospital.

There are two clear interpretations to this:

The police chased a driver into a hospital, or chased them while they were inside a
hospital.
A driver who has been involved in a police chase has ended up in hospital.

The second interpretation is most likely to be the intended meaning.

What words could be interpreted in multiple ways? The key here is the
word chase. Chase can be a noun or a verb. In the intended meaning, chase is a noun
which modifies the noun driver and is modified by the noun police, all within the
larger noun phrase police chase driver. In the alternative interpretation, chase is a verb.

Here is how the words might be grouped in the intended interpretation. Students should feel
free to just group the words as below, or to add the labels for the kinds of phrases that each
word or group of words represents.

Police chase driver in hospital

Noun Phrase Preposition Phrase

And here is how the words might be grouped in the alternative interpretation:

Police chase driver in hospital

Noun Phrase Verb Phrase Noun Phrase Preposition Phrase