He shot them dead. It’s a figure of speech, meaning the shot was fatal. So the headline is fine. He shot dead a cat. He shot dead an old lady. He shot dead a black kid.
The headline is technically grammatically correct but ambiguous. “…shot and killed unarmed black man” would have been better. If you absolutely need to stick to word/character count, “shot unarmed black man dead” would be less ambiguous and more in keeping with how people actually use “shot dead”. I’ve watched a lot of westerns and I can think of quite a few where someone says “I shot him dead” but not one where someone says “I shot dead him”.
Comma would be weird; there’s no pause, for example: “he shot dead a heard of cattle”. It all flows as one line.
If you want to fix it, just ad an “an”:
“London Cop Who Shot Dead An Unarmed Black Man Charged With Murder”. Which is typically how the saying is used. If you want a comma, I’d add it after “man”.
Figures of speech turn up in all writing, and especially in headlines. They’re useful to convey more meaning than is normally possible in few words because they rely on assumed context. Because major goals of headlines include information packing and brevity, idioms, turns of phrase, and figures of speech are common.
He shot them dead. It’s a figure of speech, meaning the shot was fatal. So the headline is fine. He shot dead a cat. He shot dead an old lady. He shot dead a black kid.
The headline is technically grammatically correct but ambiguous. “…shot and killed unarmed black man” would have been better. If you absolutely need to stick to word/character count, “shot unarmed black man dead” would be less ambiguous and more in keeping with how people actually use “shot dead”. I’ve watched a lot of westerns and I can think of quite a few where someone says “I shot him dead” but not one where someone says “I shot dead him”.
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I’d love to see an example of “I shot dead him”. I’m not trying to be defensive, I’d really enjoy seeing it. Dialects fascinate me.
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I still only have ever heard “Tim shot Eric dead.” I’ve never seen it any other way except in this headlines.
Yeah it’s the wrong way round but I think most people can also infer some context from the part where it mentions the murder charge.
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Comma would be weird; there’s no pause, for example: “he shot dead a heard of cattle”. It all flows as one line.
If you want to fix it, just ad an “an”:
But I’m not a literary professor or anything.
About 10 seconds after I submitted the comment I realized my error and deleted it lol
Figures of speech don’t really belong on a headline about murder though
Figures of speech turn up in all writing, and especially in headlines. They’re useful to convey more meaning than is normally possible in few words because they rely on assumed context. Because major goals of headlines include information packing and brevity, idioms, turns of phrase, and figures of speech are common.
Shaka, when the walls fell.