Bizlevity’s Least Surprising Headline of the Week: July 25, 2008
From MSNBC: ‘Big Hole’ In Jet Prompts Landing
File this story under “N” for “No sh*t, Sherlock.”
To the surprise of absolutely no one, a hole the size of a small car forced the crew of a Qantas jumbo jet to make an emergency landing at the Manila Airport in the Philippines.
The real surprise is why anyone thought that scare quotes were necessary around “big hole” when describing a missing section of fuselage the size of a Honda Civic.
According to the Chicago Manual of Style, quotation marks “are often used to alert readers that a term is used in a nonstandard, ironic .. sense.”
While a hole in the side of a plane is considered pretty nonstandard, there’s nothing ironic about describing such a hole as “big.”
The public relations department at Qantas notes that Australia’s largest airline boasts a strong safety record, has never lost a jet to an accident and has had no accident-related deaths on any Qantas jets since 1951.
A spokesperson for Qantas admitted, “We do have a pretty good record of scaring the bejeezus out of passengers, though.”
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“Crikey! I hope I can buy a Hanes 3-pack when we land…”
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