headline news

This paradoxical headline comes from today’s ¡Qué!, one of Madrid’s free newspapers:

Headline: 24-hour gas stations to close at night
Paradox or careless phrasing?

Twenty-four-hour gas stations can’t close at night: if they do, they won’t be 24-hour gas stations.

Who checks the headlines before the papers go to press? Don’t they have sub editors anymore?

This one came from El Mundo some time back in mid March:

El Mundo headline: cops punished for falling asleep on duty and being filmed
What exactly were they punished for?

It reads to me as if they were punished as much for getting filmed as for falling asleep, and it reminds me of when they made us apologise for being naughty when we were kids: “I’m sorry… for getting caught.”

Incidentally, clicking on that El Mundo link to check it worked, I found this:

Advert: busco tíos sensibles
Just one more of those false cognates

Even after all these years of living through the medium of Spanish, the sensible/sensitive sensato/sensible confusion made me do a double take.

I think it’s an advert for cosmetics. But would it be easier to find sensitive or sensible guys?

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Author: don't confuse the narrator

Exploring the boundary between writer and narrator through first person poetry, prose and opinion

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