Stay in the present

November 13th, 2005

Present tense headlines give a breath of life

There's a civic election in my town right now, leading to the usual sort of craziness these contests inspire. This week, candidates for mayor were duking it out over off-leash parks for dogs.

So what was the predictable headline in one of the freebie daily newspapers? Glad you asked.

Campaign gone to the dogs 

Now sure, with a little more effort, the headline writer could have gone beyond the obvious.

But, without even breaking a sweat, he or she could have dramatically improved the headline by changing just one word.

Consider:

Campaign goes to the dogs 

Changing that one word to the present tense is a very small fiddle to be sure, but it immediately breathes a smidgeon of life into what otherwise is a very tired headline.