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8 comments

[–] [Deleted] 1 points (+1|-0)

I'm English and the headline reads correctly to me. Are you from the U.S? How would you phrase it?

[–] TheRedArmy 1 points (+1|-0)

You can read it either way, I think. So you can read it as intended, "he was refused jobs 40 times" or another way that reads "he has refused 40 different jobs"; the first sounds like others are refusing him, and the second is more like he is refusing the jobs; I believe it can be correctly read either way.

[–] [Deleted] 1 points (+1|-0)

Would you have prepended 40 with "for"?

[–] TheRedArmy 1 points (+1|-0)

I probably just would have the made the headline clearer without changing the grammar. "Indian engineer named Suddam Hussain, denied 40 jobs due to name."

The slight change to deny makes it clear he is being refused work, rather than he is refusing work, and the bit at the end just clarifies the whole thing, although it isn't strictly necessary after the change to deny.

[–] [Deleted] 1 points (+1|-0)

i imagine an editor told the author that you shouldn't precede "40" with the word "for" in the title so they just deleted it and the editor didn't bother to look at it again... or maybe britglish is weirder than i know.

[–] PMYA 1 points (+1|-0)

A lot of British news headlines follow this format:

Topic topic topic, description description description

Example:

Reddit bans hate subs, users flock to Voat

This could possibly have a historical explanation. Some British news outlets are so old, they actually date back to a time when we had town criers. The Guardian, for example, was established in 1821 as the "Manchester Guardian". Perhaps we started to optimise headlines in a way that would give the most amount of information in the most simple way possible, to make it easier for the headlines to be shouted out, meaning people would buy more papers.

In the case of this headline, there is a kind of silent comma.

Indian engineer named Saddam Husssain, refused 40 jobs

It does not make sense to have a comma in there. The person who wrote it is following a format, but used the wrong wording in the headline.

[–] [Deleted] 1 points (+1|-0)

the problem is that there should be something indicating that the guy wasnt the one do the refusing. it should read "refused for 40 jobs" or "refused by 40 jobs" or "refused from 40 jobs." needs a preposition.