On Sept. 28, 1993, the Times-News received criticism for running the headline, “Residence in Keyser blown to smithereens.”
A gas explosion ripped through a brick rancher causing property damage. Despite the fact that there were no reported injuries, some felt the headline was mean-spirited.
If you happened to see Monday’s editorial page, not much has changed 30 years later.
A concerned reader took issue with the wording of a headline from Fort Hill’s 76-35 rout of Berkeley Springs on Jan. 30 that read: “No. 1 Fort Hill destroys Berkeley Springs.”
If you happened to miss it, the letter was written as follows:
“I was very disgusted by the appalling title of the sports article ‘Fort Hill destroys Berkeley Springs.’ These are high school students who have full time studies, practice times and possibly part time jobs.
“As much as we love our Sentinels, I was disgusted by this title. We did not destroy them, we won a basketball game. Since when do we tear down any students in the local newspaper?”
I wonder how the reader really feels?
This may come as a surprise, but, when I penned that headline, I didn’t mean Fort Hill literally destroyed Berkeley Springs. The Sentinels jumped out to a 27-6 lead and never looked back.
In the world of sports, verbs like “destroy” relate to the magnitude of a result. A quick Google search retrieves the following relevant definition: defeat utterly.
The search engine even provides this handy example — “The Tigers destroyed the Padres in five games.”
While the sentence lacks realism (I mean come on, the Tigers aren’t winning a World Series any time soon), it’s an apt example.
It’s the same reason why “beats,” an action that if done literally would result in a prison sentence, is the accepted neutral descriptor for an athletic competition. Ex. “Keyser beats Petersburg, 50-45.”
So that settles that, but it’s far from the whole story.
For some reason, readers becoming upset by verbs has been increasingly commonplace.
The most recent iteration of this stems from the Nov. 14, 2022, headline “Fort Hill demolishes Alco, 48-0,” which prompted a phone call outlining a similar sentiment following the Sentinels’ playoff victory.
Strangely enough, that call came exactly one week after this beauty ran to no outrage: “Alco pummels Dunbar, 14-0, in state quarterfinals,” pertaining to a boys soccer beatdown.
If you’re keeping score at home, destroying or demolishing someone is reprehensible, while pummeling them is okay.
Figuratively of course, he said, trying to avoid a lawsuit.
A month prior to that, a handful of readers took issue with one headline relating to the Allegany girls soccer win over Fort Hill titled, “Allegany outlasts Fort Hill, 4-0, on Homecoming.”
This outrage occurred on the other end of the spectrum, as folks believed that “outlasts” was not a strong enough locution for a 4-0 victory.
They even hinted at an anti-Allegany bias after the headline, “No. 2 Mountain Ridge overwhelms No. 1 Allegany, 4-1,” topped a boys soccer story later that week.
By their judgment, verbs are chosen using simple arithmetic. A four-goal win trumps one by three, and, as everyone knows, more goals means stronger verbs.
This of course ignores what actually happened in those games — like the girls being tied 0-0 in the 40th minute before the Campers broke through late in the half and pulled away, or the Mountain Ridge boys overwhelming Allegany with its pressure to the ball.
To draw inspiration from Kevin in the show “The Office” — who poetically said “Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick” — why would someone waste time watching the games or reading stories when headlines exist?
In one corner, we have readers who think we aren’t using strong enough verbs for their favorite team. In the other, we have readers who think certain verbs are causing emotional harm to our youth.
To avoid future harm and to appease all parties involved, I’ve drafted the following headline styles that we’ll be implementing in the future:
“Allegany scores more points than Meyersdale, 70-65”
“Frankfort wins (respectfully)”
“Keyser figuratively beats Hampshire”
Or, here’s a novel idea, everyone put your newspaper down for a second and take a deep breath.
There will be other sports headlines of a similar nature that you may not like, and that’s okay.
But, until someone can show me how a verb has adversely affected their life, I’m not going to feel sorry for a pile of bricks.