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Mocking Poor Grammar
Since 2007

A noun that is formed from a verb and which describes an action. In English it ends in -ing, eg 'the baking of bread' and 'Smoking damages your health'.

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1. Brilliant, in my head there is a really aggro zebra talking in a cockney accent:

   “So I kicked a kid in the mush, you wanna make sammink of it, you mug?”

   Comment by Gez — 11th September, 2007 @ 1:14 pm

2. I love that old fashioned way of including people’s ages in headlines. You’d never see it these days. I wonder if they sometimes went even further and had headlines like:

   “ASTHMATIC INTROVERT PHILIP, 24 FROM WELWYN GARDEN CITY, SON OF PETER AND DOROTHY FROM THE BOTTOM END OF THE VILLAGE, BUDDHIST, WITNESSES BIRTH OF PUPPIES.”

   Comment by Paddy — 11th September, 2007 @ 3:48 pm

3. It really should be brought back in. They should do it for everyone:

   “PRIME MINISTER BROWN, 56, SAYS BRITISH WITHDRAWAL FROM BASRA IS NOT A SIGN OF DEFEAT”.

   I tried to find Zebra Peter, 40 this year, on the internet, but to no avail. Perhaps I should look up copies of the Daily Record from the days subsequent to the kicking to see if they did a follow up.

   Christ, what if he still can’t speak properly because he got kicked in the mouth by a zebra?

   Comment by Dan — 11th September, 2007 @ 4:26 pm

4. By the way, my Dad, 56, is called Peter and lives in Welwyn Garden City. I don’t know of a Dorothy or a Philip, though, except for the characters of the same names on Neighbours in the mid-1990’s.

   Another one of those tomorrow.

   Comment by Dan — 11th September, 2007 @ 4:28 pm

5. What makes these headlines extra funny is that they refer to people by their first names. They assume an interesting level of familiarity and read almost like those terrible xmas letters that people send to their friends and loved ones at xmas. “Dear all, Peter was kicked by a zebra this year. And oh yes, in remarkable news, Cathy was saved by her hair!”

   Comment by mightyredpen — 12th September, 2007 @ 1:38 am

6. Oops, flagrant overuse of the word “xmas” in that one sentence. Sorry.

   Comment by mighty red pen — 12th September, 2007 @ 1:39 am

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