Limerick Kills Man

I write this blog to help me keep sane and to allow me to keep a record of things that catch my eye from day-to-day. I try to write clearly and concisely and keep to the rules of the English language. When I was in an old-fashioned grammar school, I was taught about constructing sentences and avoiding ambiguity. We all remember the story of the chair that was being put up for sale by the old lady with Queen Ann legs. Today I spotted a tragic story in the Irish Times. It really was tragic and it should not be laughed at. But the headline said quite simply "Man dies after Limerick Attack" The immediate impression created in my simple mind was that here was a case of a man becoming so upset by a limerick that he either died spontaneously or had committed suicide. I started to make up the limerick in my own mind. "There was an old man on the Shannon, Who ............ But what? I had to look it up and, of course, the event they were trying to report was that a man had been attacked in a house in Limerick in the West of Ireland and had subsequently died in hospital. And if you think I am being insensitive, what of the Irish Times that produced a headline that was not just ambiguous but wrong. The man died as a result of an attack by another man. That was the important headline. The fact that it happened in Limerick was secondary. All to often we see sentences these days that are, technically, either misleading or completely wrong and they rely on the reader deciding what was meant. Surely this belongs with the chair and the lady with the Queen Ann legs.

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