GRAMMAR MISTAKE OR CREATIVE EFFECTIVENESS

Abstract

The starting point of the article is its title. There are some nouns and adjectives but no verbs in it. Neither main, nor auxiliary verbs. Even though it is a question, the structure does not follow any of the question types either. This makes us think that the title of the article in particular and the headlines in general do not follow the structure of the English sentence. That is a common situation. A lot of headlines in newspapers and on covers of magazines, advertisements or just e-mails do not follow the grammar rules of a language. The Cambridge Dictionary says that headlines often use non-standard grammar and sometimes they are difficult to read. On the one hand, the main features are the use of a series of nouns, ellipsis, lack of articles or verbs (especially the verb to be). Is it a mistake or just a way to attract the reader’s attention? The article aims at providing an analysis of this type of ‘mistakes’ and address this knowledge gap. On the other hand, in order to make the news more dramatic, powerful and persuasive, to make events sound as if they are happening now, headlines commonly use the present simple, even if the article refers to a past event or the to-infinitive form to refer to future events. It is easy to relate the present perfect to the past. Although it is called present, the present perfect is a tense with past-time reference, It refers to actions and events in English that have happened up to now, in the recent past. This is the reason it is often compared to the past simple. But how can we relate the present simple to past actions and events? In formal writing the present simple is also used to refer to events in the past. Yet another ‘mistake’ should be mentioned. Especially the advertisements give the reader the benefit of the doubt. They use grammar items which are not suitable for this very situation. For example, the use of countable and uncountable nouns in English is different in regard to both determiners and verbs. However, they are used interchangeably. A similar ‘mistake’ is made with the plural form of the noun and the possessive (body’s instead of bodies, Victoria’s Secretad). The present study comes to the conclusion that the creative effectiveness of headlines and ads is the reason for all the ‘mistakes’. It is expressed only by key words to grab the attention of the reader.