Humorous Headlines
Logical fallacies can be humorous, especially the linguistic ones based on ambiguity which is often the source of puns. Headlines are particularly prone to ambiguity because of their brevity. This page collects together humorous headlines based on such logical fallacies.
The main purpose of this page is to have a few laughs, but you can also learn something about fallacies while doing so. After each headline there is a link to the relevant fallacy in the files. You can test your understanding by trying to figure out what fallacy the humor in an example is based on, then clicking on the word "Fallacy" beneath it to see if you are right. The important thing is to understand what went wrong logically in the examples, rather than to be able to identify fallacies by name―though there's nothing wrong with that, either!
Have fun!
Case of Stolen Whiskey Expected to Go to Jury1
Alcohol Frequently Seen in Cases2
Key Witness Takes Fifth in Liquor Probe2
Jury Gets Drunk Driving Case Here1
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Flaming Toilet Seat Causes Evacuation at High School4 |
Pandas married with city-wide ceremony in Thailand
Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over2
Panda's wife files case against him5
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Taking gay marriage too far3:
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Researchers Track Boobies for Climate Change Data7
Great tits could be wiped out by climate change in near future8
In a little while they'll be little red butts.3
Don't eat the yellow snow!9
'Best sex ever'. Emma McCabe plans to marry a tree named Tim10
Unfortunately, this romantic story may be some of that "fake news" I've been hearing so much about11.
Woman marries 100-year-old tree in hopes of saving it from being cut down12
They told me that same-sex marriage would lead to…well, actually they didn't warn me about this! Thankfully, this heart-warming story had a happy ending:
City won't cut down beloved (and recently married) Fort Myers ficus tree, board decides13
Notes:
- Richard Lederer, The Bride of Anguished English (2000), pp. 97 & 101
- Bob Levey, "Headlines That You Just Have to Hang On To", The Washington Post, 11/22/2002
- "Headlines", The Tonight Show
- Richard Lederer, The Bride of Anguished English (2000), p. 108
- James Taranto, "Best of the Web Today", The Wall Street Journal, 12/2/2005
- "Headlines", The Tonight Show, 12/1/2003
- Alex Chadwick, "Researchers Track Boobies for Climate Change Data", NPR, 10/24/2007
- Ben Cost, "Great tits could be wiped out by climate change in near future", New York Post, 11/11/2020
- Jay Leno, Jay Leno's Headlines, Books I, II, III (1992), p. 39
- "'Best sex ever'. Emma McCabe plans to marry a tree named Tim", News, 3/24/2015
- Diana Falzone, "Did a woman really fall in love with a poplar tree named Tim?", Fox News, 5/2/2016
- Andrea Miller, "Woman marries 100-year-old tree in hopes of saving it from being cut down", ABC News, 3/26/2018
- Amy Bennett Williams, "City won't cut down beloved (and recently married) Fort Myers ficus tree, board decides", News-Press, 3/27/2018
Revised: 11/12/2020