The end of Strictly Come Dancing must mean the end of the taxing "pun season" for BBC News's headline writers.
5 December - Strictly Come Dancing's Laila Rouass dances off show
14 November - Phil Tufnell bowled from Strictly
17 October - Calzaghe knocked out of Strictly.
These are not headlines. They're certainly not jokes. Headline writing must be a fairly dour job at the best of times, but inserting excruciating plays-on-words which wouldn't impress a chatty seven-year-old is not good. Stop it, BBC.
Still, 2009 was a low tide compared to 2008, when people danced off the show (twice, much like Gethin Jones the year before that), jived off the show, tangoed off it, foxtrotted off it (another gem recycled) and of course danced through the divide (do what?)
I look forward to somebody writing a style guide fairly soon on the replacement of normal verbs of motion with dancing terminology. I wonder if anybody will cha-cha-cha off next year?
(The BBC aren't the only culprits, either - the Press Association seem to be in a terrible muddle with this confused headline about Calzaghe, a boxer, approaching Guy Ritchie, a filmmaker. Who's tangoing the what now?)
Views and opinions from a moderate viewpoint. We believe in consensus, reason, realism, and common sense. We do not believe in dogma, hysteria, anger, or distorted perspectives. Well, we believe in them, but we don't like them.
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