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"man dies in mishap"

Posted by Smokey Stover on June 30, 2006

In Reply to: "Man dies in mishap" posted by Jonathan on June 30, 2006

: Does anyone know when and where the newspaper byline "man dies in mishap" originated? I found a dead man when I was a kid, and that was the byline in local paper. I did a web search and found that this is an oft-used byline. Any help? Jonathan

I can't tell you anything more than that this is a headline, not a byline. A newspaper story or article typically has a heading, which is called a HEADLINE. Sometimes it's in very large type and boldface, but more often it's not. "Man dies in mishap" is typical, in that it uses the minimum of words to convey the essence of the story, uses the present tense, and refers to an event of a distressingly common type. Some stories, but not all, also have a BYLINE, that is, a LINE stating BY whom the story was written. This is usually found immediately below the headline.
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