by Des McHale
Humour is to be found everywhere—if you look for it. Take for example newspaper headlines. They must catch the buyer’s and the reader’s attention, but the space is limited and words are at a premium, so sometimes ambiguities and mistakes arise, with hilarious consequences. But don’t tell me that on occasion bored compositors and subeditors do not insert them deliberately just for a laugh or to liven up the news. I say this because some of them are so good and so funny that it is very unlikely that they arose just by accident. I started collecting prime examples of funny newspaper headlines many years ago and now have literally hundreds of them, some clipped from their original sources. Let me share with you some of my favourites.
- Father Of Sixteen Shot—Mistaken For Rabbit
- Passengers Hit By Cancelled Trains
- Council To Pay £20,000 To Highlight Lack Of Funds
- FBI Find Weapons In Gun Shop
- Survey Finds Fewer Deer After Hunt
- Insane Man Found In The White House
- Miners Refuse To Work After Death
- And A Beauty From World War Two; Sixth Army Push Bottles Up Germans
- Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge
- Wind Blowing Out Of Uranus Makes It Hard To Probe Say Scientists
- Committee Appoints Committee To Appoint Committee
- We Hate Math Say Four In Ten—A Majority Of Americans
- China May Be Using Sea To Hide Submarines
- Panda Mating Fails—Vets Take Over
- Italian Prostitutes Appeal To Pope
- Queen Mary To Have Her Bottom Scraped
- Woman Falls In Hospital—Told To Call Ambulance
- Judges May Act On Indecent Shows
- Naked Possibly Armed Man Arrested
- Body Found In Cemetery
