Not A Blog™

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Readers of the North Umberton Daily Tribune were confused by one of the newspaper’s recent headlines which read Readers Confused by Newspaper Headline. While accurately conveying the situation at hand, and condensing the article into the shortest and most accurate series of words possible, some readers still expressed their bewilderment at the meaning of the phrase.

Long time subscriber of the Daily Tribune, Betty Halfworth, said “the article itself seemed to echo my very thoughts as I read it,” after reading the beginning of this sentence. She went on to express her dismay at some of the quotes in the article, feeling they did not adequately clarify the meaning of the headline. “The quotes used in the newspaper, while interesting, did not adequately clarify the meaning of the headline.”

Still, others disagree. “I was not confused at all,” said average passerby Rich Humphrey. “In fact, I thought it was kind of funny. I suppose you would more accurately say I was bemused.” He said this without irony, indicating that the average passerby does not know the meaning of the word bemused.

With detached amusement, librarian Cindy Koll explains. “The word bemused does not mean with detached amusement as some people assume. I have a dictionary here if you want to look it up.” The article declined, but refused to comment, citing a conflict of interest.

“This confusion will likely continue,” said the editor of the Daily Tribune, Kathryn Williams. “But we have a policy at the Daily Tribune where we attempt to write articles with a reduced risk of error. The amount of error in this article is zero, since the fact that it appears within this article makes it true.”

Some readers dismissed the claim that simply reading something in the newspaper makes it true, and expressed their confusion as to how this would be possible in the first place. When shown this article as supporting evidence, they replied that the article proves nothing, as it not only supports the newspaper’s claims, but also their own. “When read from a different viewpoint,” said reader Gary Zimmerman, “one can easily see that we are still confused. That’s what the article is about, after all.”

But logistician Harold Gordon warns “not to confuse confusion with fallacy…. Simply because one does not understand something does not make that thing incorrect; in this case, confusion over the headline does not make it untrue. Therefore, what the paper wrote is indeed the truth. If the fact that this article contains no errors was written in this article, which we have just established to be 100% true, than the fact is 100% true, Q.E.D.”

Average passerby Rich Humphrey, upon reading the preceding paragraph, attempted to point out that this was, in fact, circular reasoning and because of this, was invalid as a proof of anything, much less its own validity. However, his comment was cut for brevity.

Overall, readers remain confused, but the article has proven sufficient to convince the intelligencia. In turn, the readers feel as if they had been informed by the time they reach this point, even though they remain confused, while the intelligencia, having not read the article in the first place, feel informed by snidely remarking upon the fact that the headline does not describe them, when, in fact, they have not read the article, ergo it would not.