A selection of headlines from stories in the news. They use English in a way that you might think is intended to confuse, but it’s all perfectly clear to the native speaker.
‘Close Encounter of the Curd Kind’ is a headline in the Daily Mail newspaper about an attempt by the West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers Group to send the first lump of cheddar into space! The stunt was aimed to celebrate the 40th year of the Moon landing. A weather balloon was launched from Wiltshire attached by a pole to a capsule containing a digital camera, GPS tracking device and 300g of Somerset farmhouse cheddar cheese glued to a plate. It was supposed to fly 19 miles into the upper atmosphere before the balloon burst and the capsule floated back to Earth on a parachute. But after 10 minutes the tracking device failed. “We think it’s somewhere in the East of England,” said a spokesman for the group. The headline is a play on the Steven Speilberg 1977 classic sci-fi film Close Encounters of the Third Kind but instead uses ‘Curd’ which is used to make cheese.
Next year they’re going to try “Close Encounter of the Turd Kind”