If you have ever been confused by the language of newspaper or TV news headlines, this post is for you. We’ll shed light on the style and provide a couple of exercises for practice.

Certain words are used very often in newspaper headlines because they are short (e.g. big, oust, plea, quit) or sound dramatic (e.g. blast, boost). Some of these words are not common in ordinary language or are used in a different sense. Headlines also omit certain words and use colloquial expressions, abbreviations and different verb tenses, e.g. “STAR TO WED” (A film star is going to get married).

More examples

Mother’s plea to kidnappers	plea (formal) – an urgent and emotional request
Arms deal probe	arms (formal) – weapons, especially those used by the armed forces probe – an investigation into something
Ten-hour ordeal for tourists	ordeal – a difficult or unpleasant experience
Senate urgest caution	to urge something – to forcefully recommend something
Bid to oust rail chief	bid – an attempt to oust somebody (out of something) – to force somebody out of a job or position
Bomb blast wrecks factory	blast – an explosion to wreck something – to destroy or badly damage something
Boost for voters	boost – a thing that helps or encourages something
Injury blow for United	blow – bad news (when something unfortunate has happened)
New flood alert	alert – a warning
Talks on brink of collapse	If something is on the brink of something, it has reached a point where it is about to happen (often something very bad).
PM rules out referendum	to rule something out – to reject the possibility of something

Exercise 1

For each of the headlines, find the sentence which expresses it as it would appear in an ordinary news announcement. Click the link here to do the exercise.

Useful vocabulary:

• to rig sth. (e.g. a poll) – to influence something such as an election in a dishonest way in order to produce a particular result
• reshuffle – the process of changing the jobs or responsibilities of the people in a particular group or organization
• to gag sb. – to officially prevent a person, newspaper etc. from talking about or publishing something
• haul – an amount of things that are stolen at the same time
• swoop – a sudden and unexpected attack on a place, especially by police

Exercise 2

Match the words from the headlines above with their meanings. Click the link here to do the exercise.

Materials used: “Advanced Vocabulary and Idioms” by B.J. Thomas; “Oxford Word Skills. Advanced” by R.Gairns and S.Reman

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