One reads that the Daily Union, a local paper chasing alleged embezzlement first reported in the Janesville Gazette, has decided to grab the story and add a supposedly clever headline:
Honest to goodness, how does editor Chris Spangler expect ordinary people to keep up with a subtle headline like that?
One needs to take a moment to puzzle this through: (1) someone is alleged to have stolen money from a bakery, (2) bakeries use dough, (3) dough also is slang for money, so (4) Spangler must mean that the bakery allegedly lost a lot of money.
Dizzying, isn’t it? Somehow, one does the best one can to keep up with wordplay like that.
The Daily Union – a paper that toadies to smarmy insiders, that flacks corporate welfare as though legitimate fiscal policy, and whose Whitewater correspondent copies parts of press releases into his so-called reporting – is hardly a publication one would rely on for clever.
In any event, wordplay this predictable isn’t clever; it’s a dull attempt to repackage a story on which the DU was scooped.
Sycophancy, bad writing, and laziness? Sure, they’re up for that.
Clever? No, that’s not their thing.