March 23, 2004
Greatest Lede Ever

Much as I frequently admire tabloid headlines, sometimes it's the opening line of the story itself which causes one to weep with admiration. Although I am sure that everyone else in the universe is already very tired of the coverage of Courtney Love's recent uncoverage, how can we dismiss the inestimable contribution to the history of language offered by this morning's Page Six. While the headline sports the wanly eye-catching pun "Courtney's Breast Friend," the first paragraph opens with a phrase that quite simply made everyone's morning around here: Skanks for the mammaries. I could marvel over the lowest-brow beauty of that for days and days. What I love most is that it eschews any literal gloss -- the double-tweak on the Bob Hope phrase (boldly invoked simply 'cuz it sounded good) rises straight to the level of poetry. Let us praise the editor who admitted its beauty and let it pass, untrammelled by conventional demands for a clear subject and verb, into our grateful ears.

Posted by BT at March 23, 2004 10:40 AM