When Words Collide

Sometimes a perfectly good headline is less than perfectly good. Recent history makes it clear that "world trade" and "collapse" are best kept apart in references to anything other than the World Trade Center's collapse, and the juxtaposition with a reference to seven years, seven years after 2001 in a New York newspaper, makes it all especially unfortunate. I cringed when I first glimpsed this headline, and I suspect it was changed for later editions.

It's the Dummy Type, Dummy

Yahoo is apparently spending too much time on exclamation-point maintenance and not enough on copy editing. "Caption goes here" is embarrassing enough, but the profanity is particularly uncalled-for. If you must use dummy type, make it innocuous. (By the way, it's "damn it" or "dammit." "Damnit" is neither here nor there.)

We Use Frankfurters in Our Hot Dogs!

I have trouble even stomaching the smell of Subway outlets, but I have to hand it to the folks at the mega-chain: Corned-beef Reubens really are the best kind of Reubens. (If only somebody would break it to them about the grilled rye bread.)

I'm hoping the ubiquitous eatery follows up the Corned Beef Reuben with something equally distinctive: perhaps a roast-beef French dip, or a bacon BLT, or even a peanut-butter-and-jelly peanut butter and jelly.

Obama Calls America Wicked

OK, not really. But there was this:

Obama emphasized what he called "the enormity of the American accomplishment," touring Peterson Air Force Base here, viewing the ultra-secretive North American Aerospace Defense Command, U.S. Northern Command headquarters and the Air Force Academy.

It's not quite "misunderestimated," but it could be a little disappointing to . . . "some."

A 10-Yard Infraction

This headline works well -- if the story is about a penalty in American
football.

But enough about helping verbs. What's new with you?