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Some minutes ago, I've seen news (here on BBC) where the title is:

"Norway to ban full-face veil in nurseries, schools and universities"

I understand that the meaning is "> "Norway is going to ban etc. or "Norway on the way to ban etc. as written in the article by itself: "Norway is proposing a ban on the Muslim full face veil and other face-covering clothing because it says it hinders communication between pupils and teachers."

Now, my question if this omitting is intentionally and this structure of sentence is considered correct in English or maybe it's just a mistake and it's not correct?

Another topics of differences in tenses don't answer my question which deals with structure.

ColleenV
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Virtuous Legend
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  • My question is about a specific structure of sentence rather than about usage of a different tense in a title that I know it already:) – Virtuous Legend Jun 12 '17 at 22:19
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    It's not a mistake. It's headlinese English. It's perfectly correct in that realm. Please do not expect newspaper headlines to be exemplars of acceptable usage outside of a journalistic context. – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Jun 12 '17 at 22:21
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    I understand. The other question asks about tense, but the accepted answer explains that headlines follow their own rules different from the so-called standard English rules. – Em. Jun 12 '17 at 22:22
  • This does not seem to me to be "perfectly correct" headlinese. From such a headline, I get the impression that it's a done deal, and that Norway is definitely going to ban full-face veils in the given settings. In my experience, it's not part of headlinese to conflate proposals with completed decisions. If that is, indeed, standard, I'd like to see more examples of it. – G Tony Jacobs Jun 12 '17 at 22:27
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    @GTonyJacobs It is "perfectly correct" headlinese in that it states a prediction. The prediction will not necessarily come true. The headline writer has freedom to sacrifice accuracy for economy. – choster Jun 12 '17 at 22:33
  • Well, as a long-time reader of headlines, this one seems to me to go against the grain. It seems it would be much more consistent with headlinese to say "Norway proposes ban...", or something like that. Again, examples would be an excellent way to address this point. – G Tony Jacobs Jun 12 '17 at 22:35
  • @P.E.Dant and as a learner I thought that newspapers are best thing to learn from. So do you suggest me not to learn English from newspapers? (I always supposed that they have editors who are expert in writing and their function is to correct mistake if there are. – Virtuous Legend Jun 12 '17 at 22:56
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    Newspapers are a good source of news, and possibly of current idiomatic usage, but not of correct grammar. However, your assumption about editors is naive. An editor's remit is to ensure that the story is told concisely and accurately. Grammar is often a secondary consideration. When it comes to headlines, the objective is to get the gist of the story across in as few words as possible, no matter what outrages are committed against English. – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Jun 12 '17 at 23:02
  • There is no state authority that governs English (as, for instance, the Académie française governs the use of French) and there is no "official" set of rules which might guide such an editor in the U.S. or the U.K. In the U.S., any newspaper (and any publisher of any kind) can publish whatever it chooses, in whatever words it pleases. A student of English is better advised to study works of prose than of journalism. – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Jun 12 '17 at 23:42
  • ... so that's the case in your country/language. In English, which doesn't have one perfect version of the language, "news speak" is common and, as noted... it's designed for brevity. If you're really trying to read to help learn proper writing, newspapers are not the best source. Short, clipped sentences and two sentence paragraphs are not the epitome of good English structure. – Catija Jun 12 '17 at 23:43
  • @VersatileandAffordable These are called "copy editors" in English. The extent of editing in print newspapers has diminished greatly as they have lost audience to online sources. Online news sources turn out copy which is constantly updated, so the opportunity for editing is diminished. Moreover, journalistic English must be tailored to relatively unsophisticated readers. And in any case, headlines are not sentences, just titles: they are not bound by the "rules" of even informal syntax. – StoneyB on hiatus Jun 12 '17 at 23:47
  • @StoneyB thank you. In online dictionary it was written that it is "linguistic editor" . I sent to this site a message now to change the translation. Thank you for your comment. I learnt from it that the answer for my question is that it is not a correct sentence but it is just a title. Titles normally are not obligated to grammatical rules. Did I understand you properly? – Virtuous Legend Jun 12 '17 at 23:54
  • I hope you understand that no-one—not a writer, not an editor, not a publisher, author, or writer of any sort, is obligated to follow "rules" of grammar. There are no such rules. There are currently observed conventions and norms, but they are constantly evolving. – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Jun 12 '17 at 23:57
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    @VersatileandAffordable , the reason I was asking for further examples is because I'm claiming that this particular usage is non-standard for headlinese. More examples of headlines using future tense for predictions would show that such usage is more standard than I think it is. – G Tony Jacobs Jun 13 '17 at 01:20

1 Answers1

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  1. The people who write headlines (editors) are not the people who write the stories (reporters).

  2. Headlines are written in headlinese.

  3. Headlines are written to sell papers or to drive advertising revenue up.

  4. Most of the time, editors do not read the articles that the reporters have written. They skim them.

  5. Editors have only so much space to write a headline.

  6. The verb to be is very often sacrificed in headlinese.

  7. The absent verb in this case could be is as in is to ban.

  8. The editor could have been influenced by the headline of an earlier story from the same news service entitled:

Austria to ban full-face veil in public places

green_ideas
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  • Regarding to section no.7 "The absent verb in this case could be is as in is to ban.". Do you mean to say that ""Norway is to ban full-face veil in nurseries etc." would be deserved for writing in the report itself? (By the way, you mentioned editor many times while I didn't refer to it in the question even one time. In the comment I mentioned copy editor ("linguistic editor") which his function is "reviewing and correcting written material to improve accuracy, readability, and fitness for its purpose, and to ensure that it is free of error, omission, inconsistency, and repetition." – Virtuous Legend Jun 13 '17 at 00:04
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    I'm simply saying that there are many conjugated forms of to be and I offered one that you may not have thought of. I am not saying it accurately describes the news report. – green_ideas Jun 13 '17 at 00:11
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    This should be required reading for anyone who wants to write a future question about the correctness of headlines on ELL. – J.R. Jun 13 '17 at 01:58
  • @J.R. And how. It's wikiworthy IMHO, but that's Clare's call. – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Jun 13 '17 at 03:20
  • Potential #9: Headlines are often ambiguous or cryptic by design. If the headlines perfectly summarized the articles, people would just read the headlines and skip the articles. Headlines are often intentionally ambiguous or cryptic to attract eyeballs but encourage reading of the article to understand the actual story. – fixer1234 Jun 13 '17 at 06:26
  • @fixer1234 not in my experience. – green_ideas Jun 13 '17 at 12:56
  • @fixer1234 - I wouldn't call them "ambiguous or cryptic by design," but I have seen a lot of deliberate puns embedded. In the business section, for example, the earnings for Boeing might "Soar", the earnings for McDonald's might "Sizzle", and the earnings for a solar energy start-up might be "Looking Bright". But I suppose this might depend on the publication. Some newspapers seem more interested in sensationalizing the news than reporting it. – J.R. Jun 13 '17 at 14:54