R.O.U.S.'s did exist

I'm here to complain that this headline sucks.

One Ton Rodent Found in Uruguay

It would have been nice if they'd mentioned in the headline that it was a dead rodent. Or a four million year old rodent. Or a palentologist's find. Anything like that! Because every time my eye landed on the phrase "One ton rodent found in Uruguay", I would panic for a second and begin to wonder how far Uruguay is from Sacramento.

Comments

[Anthony]

I wonder if it's a cousin to the Giant Rat of Sumatra, a Sherlock Holmes case mentioned in passing by Watson ("for which the world is not ready")? If so, could this be the missing clue to the upcoming X-Files movie or even Cloverfield ("oh no/there goes old Soho...")?

[Dan]

Maybe this was a little bit of chuckleheaded copy editor fun. When I was at the Daily Cal, we had a guy write a headline saying, "Thousands die in lab mishap." The thousands referred to goldfish and other small things that perished because some student or lab tech had failed to set a thermostat properly. The headline ran that way.

And that reminds me of another copy desk discussion, re: the difference between "mishap" and "tragedy." The discussion was illustrated with an example: "It would be a mishap if [Rush Limbaugh or your choice of loathsome personality] fell off a pier into the bay; it would be a tragedy if anyone helped him get out."

What a funny bunch.