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Monday, June 09, 2008

Unquote

There was an "interesting" headline on the BBC today:

'Twelve die' in Algerian blasts

The quote marks are there apparently because it is not known exactly how many people died. surely they could construct a more grammatically correct headline though I mean this is the "BBC".

4 comments:

Robyn said...

The first paragraph of that article sheds more light on the wording of the headline:

At least 12 people have been killed by two explosions at a train station east of the Algerian capital, reports say.

The headline is quoting or paraphrasing the reports that are saying 12 people are dead.

It's in quotes because - at the moment, at least - it's just a reported claim. It's not an established fact.

It's similar to a headline like 'Not ready' for second term or 'Too late' to save school.

Hadyn said...

Yeah i knew that, I was just wondering why it didn't say At Least 12 Dead...

Most of the BBC's articles come from reports, especially breaking news. But this was the first time I saw something resembling fact in quotes.

Robyn said...

Because it might not be at least 12. It might actually have been only 3 dead and the rest were badly injured. Or what was thought to we 12 dead people were actually zombies.

I think the BBC are just covering their arses. Zombies can be ligitious.

Hadyn said...

I don't suppose you read Terry Pratchet? One of his characters is a lawyer who also happens to be a zombie.