好標題共賞:

[Slap happy] <<掌得很開心 >>; [Last stand] <<最後一檔>>; [The ball's in your court'] <<輪到你做決定>>

背景: 2011年香港報業公會的評委選出去年本地報章的最佳標題，共三則。

[Slap happy] <<掌得很開心>> A local judge has spared (note 1) the niece of a top Hong Kong judge a prison term (note 2) although she has been convicted for a third time of slapping (note 3) a police officer.

[Last stand] <<最後一檔>> The newsstand slowly fades out (note 4) in Hong Kong due to competition from chain stores (note 4), news online, declining newspaper sales, free newspapers and government regulation.

[The ball's in your court'] <<輪到你做決定>>A transsexual's (note 5) request to marry her boyfriend has been rejected (note 6) by a local judge and the judge tells the government to consider whether it’s time it changed the law.

好英文辭彙共賞:

(note 1) spare =使某人免遭(麻煩等)。Can you spare me a few minutes, Julian?=Julian, 你能抽幾分鐘和我談談嗎？spare no efforts =不遺餘力。(note 2) a prison term =坐監。(note 3) slap =一 巴掌, 一個耳光。slap Victor on the back=拍拍Victor 的脊背〔表示贊許〕。(note 4) chain stores =便利店。(note 5) transsexual =變性人。(note 6) rejected =拒絕。

短評共賞: 寫標題有不同的技巧，包括Exaggeration (誇張overstates the case); Tabloidese (小報化, 用Boob 而不用 breast); Pun (玩文字, play on words); Variation (多樣化); Rhetoric (加強語氣, language to persuade or impress); Litotes (低調處理, understatement); Metonymy (相關辭語, name of a related thing); Oxymoron (反語, contradictory terms); Alliteration (首字同音, same initial sound); Assonance (字彙同音, similar vowel)和Black humor (黑色幽默, make fun of people’s disability)。這三個標題很明顯用Pun (玩文字) 和Metonymy (相關辭語)這兩種技巧。[-happy]是很常見的英語用法，例如trigger-happy (愛開槍的人); Slap happy就像(愛掌刮他人的人)。另外，Last stand的stand 是newspaper stand (報攤)的簡寫。[The ball's in your court'] <<輪到你做決定>>這個標題最過癮, 法官判了變性人不能結婚, 然後叫政府去考慮改例，就是把皮球(ball)拋給政府。Ball也可以是變性人割下來的ball (睾丸)。