What do you do when it comes to using big words in newspaper headlines? These words eat up a lot of headline space, leaving little space for sub-editors to write meaningful headlines.
In the past, hard-pressed news desks found an easy solution to circumvent this problem. They started abbreviating or shortening big words that are used frequently in news headlines. As a result, administration became ‘admn’, government became ‘govt’ and secretary became ‘secy’. The financial papers which often had to use Finance Ministry in headlines came up with ‘finmin’ as a convenient substitute.
Over a period of time, the readers also started recognising these abbreviated words. They also got used to the shortening of the names of cities and states, and started connecting ‘Ggn’ with Gurgaon, ‘Gzd’ with Ghaziabad and ‘M’rashtra’ with Maharashtra.
It would have been fine if newspapers abbreviated big words only. But the habit clearly is not easy to give up. They have now started abbreviating smaller words too. Some examples are ‘bk’ for bank , ‘mkt’ for market, ‘stn’ for station, ‘mths’ for months and ‘thru’ for through.
The questions is: How many more words will come under the axe? An even more important question is: How much liberty should news desks be allowed to take?
Journalists defend this action as necessary and an accepted part of newspaper style. They further argue that these mutilations are allowed only in headlines. The full word has to be used in the body.
Interesting distinction.
However, one wonders where is this going to stop. As it is, purists are aghast at the way English language is being mutilated by SMS senders. Similarly, users of platforms such as WhatsApp are merrily going around creating a new English vocabulary.
There was a time the world waited for Oxford Dictionary to add a new word to English language. It still does.
But one does not know how Oxford dictionary will deal with such mass-scale mutilations? Will they all end up as legitimate English words or will they exist in the grey space?
Read also:
5 trusted to rules to follow while writing headlines
How to use punctuation marks in headlines
How to use attribution in headlines