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Misinterpreted Headlines

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Anonymous

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Misinterperated Headlines

ever read a headline so quickly that you see something else?

like today, when the news of the USS Cole bombing mastermind was released, i read so quickly that it looked like "COLE PORTER CAPTURED!" instead of "COLE PLOTTER CAPTURED!"

i was like "wow, he faked his death or something and now they've caught up to him!" lol


i remember the night Di died and the news was flashing all over the screen. they mentioned "tunnel"...then i thought i saw "mine" so i first thought she died down a mineshaft.
 
That happened to me a few days ago with the FT headlines. I thought for sure the article was about a two-wombed wombat and I couldn't figure out why they were making such a fuss about its privacy. A woman, now that's a different story.
 
I once glimpsed a headline mentioning (as I thought at the time) the M 16 motorway.

Except we didn't have an M 16 motorway - the story was about MI 6..!
 
There was the one a few years back that said "Tests cancelled as Boycott bites"
It was actually about education but I thought it was about cricket! :)

(And no, I'm not going to explain it)
 
I don't want to worry anybody, but I think this problem gets worse as you get older. I'm always doing it. I'm forever having to do double takes on news stories, special offers in shop windows etc etc. I think our vision get lazy, sees only half the picture, and our brains fill in the gaps for us. That's my excuse anyways!:D
 
Susan Bulmer said:
I don't want to worry anybody, but I think this problem gets worse as you get older.
It's just that you have more experience to make connections to, and so sometimes it's the wrong one!
 
rynner said:
It's just that you have more experience to make connections to, and so sometimes it's the wrong one!
Thank the Lord for that!
It worries me at times!;)
 
I suffer from a more verbal version. Unfortunately for my wife, I have problems understanding exactly what she says (I accuse her of mumbling - she accuses me of not bothering to listen). Anyway, I just get to hear a few words, the general rythmn of the sentence and then fill in the gaps myself.

e.g. "Are we going into town today?" Could end up as being "are you getting into Darren Day"? with....errr...hilarious consequences.

It is like the deaf stuntman on the Fast Show played by John Thompson.
 
I once glimpsed a headline mentioning (as I thought at the time) the M 16 motorway.

Except we didn't have an M 16 motorway - the story was about MI 6..!

HAHAHAHAHA good thing you didn't relay the M-16 news the person nearest you or that would have made you look like a horse's patoot.
 
I keep reading that 'Cumberland Spaceman' thread as 'Cumberland Sausage'
 
"Fayed repeatedly bugged by MI5" sent a shiver down my spine when I first glanced at it.
 
The commonest misread word, I gather, is Shop-fitters being seen as
Shop-lifters. Shirt-fitters can also be a big disappointment.

But my most recent supermarket mistake was to read Pancetta as Placenta.

I blame that bloody television cook. :cross eye
 
There was a TV programme once, showing some New Age types having a naming ceremony for their baby. One of the nibbles offered to friends and relatives was placenta on toast (they'd cooked it and added herbs and stuff, and it looked a bit like pate) . . . :eek!!!!: :cross eye

Carole
 
Yummy! But don't forget to discard those membranes, folks!

And there's this which I fully expect to develop into a variation of the Spam sketch.
 
I'm deaf and lipread, which means my brain (such as it is) fills in more gaps than most. ) I'm also a biker, and one day down the pub listening to a friend boasting that he was "brilliant at pulling wheelies at a short distance", I heard him say he was brilliant "at pulling wheelies in naughty knickers". My consequent howls of laughter were lost on him until I was able to speak.
 
Must be a very useful accomplishment, lipreading . . .

Carole
 
I read on the cover of a sunday paper recently:-

"Myra's Last Words: Pages 8,9 &11"

and thought "god, she went on a bit didn't she?" I was hung over so don't judge me too harshly.

Its meanings that get me:

"Man's Babboon heart rejection"

Did the man's body reject a babboon heart, or did doctors refuse to provide him with one? The tabloids creativity with punctuation doesn't help.

--kiel--
 
One hungover morning I was entirely confused by the headline "Man mugged by Canal" Did it reach up a watery arm and trip him while walking on the tow path?
 
Just want to point out that cant and cox could both be confused with, well, other things. So there's some serious sollipsis (is that the word?) going on.
 
"DavidHM" reminds me of David Hume, the Scottish philospher whose work is described as a central text of British empiricism - he denied anything supernatural.

Solipsism is an extreme version of this sceptical philosophy, maintaining that one's own experience is the only real thing there is, and even other people could be a reflection of one's own consciousness.

Sorry about that little brain fart.

Carry on now, nothing to see here! :)
 
DavidHM said:
Just want to point out that cant and cox could both be confused with, well, other things..

Reminds me of the cricketer whose name was Cunis. As the commentator said "Cunis, it's a strange name, neither one thing or the other"
 
The Edinburgh Evening News is always good for misinterpreting headlines in my experience. Here's a couple of examples from last night's edition:

Diamond is cut from house
- about Anne Diamond leaving Big Brother, rather than a big diamond being cut out of a house, which was my initial thought.

Helicopter "blows" men to riverbank (OK, this is just my dirty mind)

:)
 
I just misread two thread titles and thought I saw Relativity - the contents of your drawers.

Well, it made me laugh. I know, I know, coat, etc.
 
I was glancing through the Radio Times for this evening and, for a second, thought that tonight's TOTP2 was "a special edition in which Celine Dion introduces her tits."

I'm not sure if that would be better or worse than her "hits."
 
Hubcap has a strange way of seeing words which is occasionally amusing. My favourites were "Turkey Ordering Desk" (a sign in M&S), he wondered what a turkey would want with a desk. And the Superbowl in Sutton, which he insists is Supurb Owl. Would be more entertaining than bowling any day.
 
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