Editing Syntactic ambiguity (section)

==In headlines==
Newspaper [[headline]]s are written in a [[Telegram style|telegraphic style]] ([[headlinese]]) which often [[Zero copula|omits the copula]], creating syntactic [[ambiguity]]. A common form is the [[garden-path sentence|garden path]] type. The name '''crash blossoms''' was proposed for these ambiguous [[headlines]] by Danny Bloom in the Testy Copy Editors discussion group in August 2009. He based this on the headline "Violinist ([[Diana Yukawa]]) linked to [[Japan Air Lines Flight 123|JAL crash]] blossoms" that Mike O'Connell had posted, asking what such a headline could be called.<ref>[[Ben Zimmer]], "On Language: Crash Blossoms", ''[[New York Times Magazine]]'', January 27, 2010 [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/magazine/31FOB-onlanguage-t.html?scp=1&sq=headline&st=cse online text]</ref> The ''[[Columbia Journalism Review]]'' regularly reprints such headlines in its "The Lower Case" column, and has collected them in the anthologies "''Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim"''<ref>Gloria Cooper, ed., ''Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim, and other flubs from the nation's press'', Dolphin Books, 1980, {{ISBN|0-385-15828-9}}</ref> and "''Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge"''.<ref>Gloria Cooper, ''Red tape holds up new bridge, and more flubs from the nation's press'', Perigee Books, 1987. {{ISBN|0-399-51406-6}}</ref> [[Language Log]] also has an extensive archive of crash blossoms, for example "''Infant Pulled from Wrecked Car Involved in Short Police Pursuit''".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4441|title=Language Log}}</ref>

Many purported crash blossoms are [[wikt:apocryphal|apocryphal]] or recycled.<ref>[http://snopes.com/humor/nonsense/head97.asp 1997 Headlines] at [[Snopes.com]].</ref>  One celebrated one from [[World War I]] is "French push bottles up German rear";<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/Archive/Article/0,4273,4342940,00.html |title=Heads you win: The readers' editor on the art of the headline writer |newspaper=Guardian |date=2000-04-13 |access-date=2009-06-05 | location=London | first=Ian | last=Mayes}}</ref> life imitated art in the [[World War II|Second World War]] headline "Eighth Army Push Bottles Up Germans".<ref>[[Fritz Spiegl]], ''What The Papers Didn't Mean to Say'' Scouse Press, Liverpool, 1965</ref>