Neil Gaiman tweeted a link this morning to an article at Telegraph.co.uk. The article is about a budding chemist who apparently liked to dip his chewing gum in citric acid, but on this day accidentally dipped it into some explosive chemical. When he started chewing the gum again, the gum exploded and he died.
The unfortunate Ukrainian is certainly up for a Darwin award, but that isn't why I'm writing about it. What I'm writing about is the summation sentence that appears right below the article's title:
A student in Ukraine died after his jaw was blown off reportedly by exploding chewing gum.
I had to read this sentence three times to figure it out because I didn't know how something could be "blown off reportedly." I assume that what the reporter meant to write was A student in Ukraine died after his jaw was blown off, reportedly by exploding chewing gum. This would be the clinical and unbiased edit that the Telegraph would likely go for. A more cynical reporter might use an em dash instead of a comma, and then maybe italicize, boldface, or all-cap "chewing gum." On the whole, though, a good editor should have completely rewritten the sentence.
Thus the subtlety of the English language and the power of punctuation and formatting of the printed word. Using the exact same words, you can "say" something in different ways. Consider the differences:
- A student in Ukraine died after his jaw was blown off by exploding chewing gum.
- A student in Ukraine died after his jaw was blown off — BY EXPLODING CHEWING GUM!
- A student in Ukraine died after his jaw was blown off by exploding chewing gum.
Not to mention emoticons:
- A student in Ukraine died :( after his jaw was blown off :o by exploding chewing gum. :P
They say that sarcasm and other forms of emotional expression are difficult to express online in print. But it isn't impossible.