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Ambiguous Fox News Headline Of The Day

June 22, 2009 on 3:17 pm | In Needs more info | No Comments

“Maryland Woman Fatally Shot Attacking Husband, Police Say” read the headline.

The story is here, but that’s besides the point. The headline is the interesting part.

While technically grammatically correct:
[noun] (verb) {object}
[[adjective]noun] ((adverb)verb) {{adjective}object}
[[Maryland] Woman] ((Fatally) Shot) {{Attacking} Husband}

Most people put into this the media hysteria driven bias that women are shot by their husbands in domestic violence and end up twisting this to conform with the usual headline form:
{object}(verb)/why/
Such as: {drug dealer}(killed)/in police chase/
Or: {terrorist}(shot)/trying to detonate bomb/
And parse the headline as:
{object}(verb)/why/
{Maryland Woman}(Fatally Shot)/Attacking Husband/

But in this story, instead the subject of the story, the Maryland Woman, defended her self by fatally shooting her husband who was attacking her in violation of a restraining order.

Perhaps Fox should have tried: “Maryland Woman Shoots Attacking Husband, Fatally” or “Police Say Maryland Woman Fatally Shot Her Attacking Husband”, or even “Police Say Maryland Woman Attacked By, Fatally Shoots Her Attacking Husband”.