Misreading a Headline Can Be Fun
August 25, 2006 – 9:28 amI popped over to CNN.com this morning for a quick news update, and one of the linked articles had an interesting title: “Depression on verge of becoming Ernesto”.
Before I clicked on the link, I thought I had an idea what the article was about. I thought, stupidly, that the medical condition currently known as “depression” was going to be renamed “Ernesto”. So, someone didn’t have “manic depression”; they had “manic Ernesto”. I don’t know. I figured if we could drop Pluto from the solar system, we could surely rename “depression”. But it definitely sounded weird.
And sure enough, the article was talking about how a tropical depression in the Caribbean was on the verge of becoming a tropical storm, and thus it would be named, and it’s name would be Ernesto. Yes, that makes much more sense.
I’m a moron.
5 Responses to “Misreading a Headline Can Be Fun”
Is it just me, or are your templates b0rked?
By Dixie on Aug 25, 2006 at 9:50 am
I hesistate to say it’s just you, because I doubt you’re the only one that’s seeing whatever it is that’s going wrong. But, I have checked on my own installations of Firefox (1.5.0.6) and Opera (9.00 Beta 2), and nothing looks off to me.
What is it that’s happening?
By jjk on Aug 25, 2006 at 9:56 am
Looks fine to me on XP/Opera.
As for the whole “I’m a moron” statement, you’ll get no argument from me! Ha!
By Adam on Aug 25, 2006 at 2:39 pm
What? You’re not buying “manic Ernesto”? The joke’s going to be on you after the American Medical Association receives my petitions and finally decides to change the name of clinical “depression” to “Ernesto”. Oh, the joke will definitely be on you.
By jjk on Aug 25, 2006 at 2:51 pm
For some reason, I was getting your blog in plain text. Even after restarting the browser. It worked in IE. And it’s working now. Probably just a fluke, and all my fault. Sorry about that. :]
By Dixie on Aug 28, 2006 at 10:54 am