Maybe it is the fact that I do not read tabloid newspapers, but I never had imagined that puns, as a form of language art, are used over and over in the short paragraphs next to the ‘page 3 girls’. Reading that particular paragraph in chapter six of Using English from conversation to canon, I instantly wondered if the German Bild-Zeitung does similar things. Given my not very high preconception of Germany’s most famous tabloid newspaper, I was not surprised that they apparently do not even manage that. Different from the English archetype Sun which has its topless ladies on page three, the Bild-Zeitung does not even pretend that its focus lies on current news coverage. Day after day, naked breasts and girls in overdone seductive poses catch the eye of the typical Yellow Journalism reader and if one wants it or not the eye of everyone else. I’m not against pictures of naked girls in general, but now that I know how it could be with the Sun as an example of how unpretentious satisfaction of mens’ desires can be accompanied by linguistic humor, I’m more than ever disappointed of Bild.
Picture via
The last time I read Bild they at least had some kind of text under naked girl pic. But it was some kind of bullshit like "Anna ist so heiß in ihrem T-Shirt - Was soll sie bloß tun?". So no, no "linguistic" humor. But I seriously doubt that Bild- and Sun-reader respectively care alot about the linguistic cleverness or simplicity of the text. Let me put it this way: when having to compete with naked girls texts of any sort have a very hard time to get man's attention. ;-)
AntwortenLöschenHate to say I told you so ;)
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