The redoubtable Grammar Girl has announced her No. 1 Pet Peeve for 2008: the use of "slay" as a noun -- as in the headline "Slay Suspect Amanda Knox Stars in Feature Film in Jail."
Huh. I have as many peeves as the next grammarian, but "slay" doesn't particularly bother me. It's no farther off-kilter than "pix" in the beloved 1935 Variety headline "Sticks Nix Hick Pix" (translation: Small-town and rural viewers aren't responding positively to movies set in rural milieux).
Headlines are often highly condensed -- I've put in my time as a newspaper editor deleting unnecessary syllables to get the danged thing to fit on one line. And "Slaying" is at risk of being read as a participle rather than a noun-adjective -- as in "Slaying Suspect Amanda Knox, Mystery Killer Vanishes."
In any case, I probably don't need to worry that "slay suspect" will turn up in The Atlantic anytime soon.
Hey - I might have missed it, but did you post around your fellow blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates, trying to get "conversate" into the mix as an acceptable word?
You should, at least, read the post - http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/01/ask_the_expert_is_conversate_a_word.php
and the comments, both are incredibly amusing.
Also, gives you a chance to do some cross-posting with someone who is deeply in love with the power of language, although from a hip-hop poet sensibility.
Might be fun to see the cross-conversation!
Posted by JC | January 8, 2009 1:00 PM