Headlines that are hard to stomach

I had wanted to continue with a follow-up to what I wrote yesterday on demonyms. But I will postpone that and, instead, put the spotlight on two terrible headlines that were spotted:

1) "By age three, they can tell if you'll be a criminal" (Today, 23 Feb, page 31).

The intro of this story says, "The seeds of criminal and anti-social behaviour can be found in children as young as three, scientists have claimed". But since the story refers to three-year-old children, the modifier in the headline ("By age three"), in linking to "they", is referring to the children, not the scientists. So, it now means "Children by age three can tell if you'll be a criminal!"

The headline could have been written as, "By age three, that child may well have a criminal mind".

2) "Meat lovers may find it hard to stomach" (Straits Times, 21 Feb, page A19).

This story's intro says: "Eat less red meat and processed meat to reduce the risk of bowel cancer. That is the advice of British scientific experts, in a report due this week."

The headline writer here tries to be clever, playing on the likelihood that people who die, die, must have their daily fix of red meat and processed meat are not going to be happy with the report even if they run the risk of getting a cancer that is associated with the digestive system, and hence the stomach. But the headline here uses "stomach" as a transitive verb, which must take an object. But where is the object? So, the headline is incomplete... there is no object!

The headline could have been recast thus, with the said verb now made intransitive: "Meat lovers may find report hard to stomach".

Okay, more on demonyms tomorrow!