Let's have a vote. Which is more surreal:

"Wisconsin Man Runs Over, Eats Seven-Legged Transgendered Deer," or "World's Tallest Man Saves Plastic Eating Dolphins"?

Boy, the copy editors must have had a blast with those.

That last one is kind of ambiguous. I think that "plastic eating" should be hyphenated. As written, one could interpret it as the man was saving plastic while it was eating dolphins, or that he was saving plastic while he was eating dolphins. Neither of which is the actual story.

I used to have an hilarious book of journalism bloopers, including miswritten headlines. The book's title was "Milk Drinkers Turn To Powder." It included the classic from the Jimmy Carter era, on one of his speeches: "More Mush From The Wimp."

Ahh... another headline to be added to "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves"

As a side note, there are almost no good pictures of the 7-legger, and the ones I saw looked like infected dewclaws rather than additional appendages. Since the guy skinned the deer and ate it already, it's impossible to know if there were actual structural anomalies in the animal's skeletal and reproductive systems.

Another one of my faves was "Teenage Sex Problems Mounting"

Ahh, those wacky teenagers...

Rand, somehow between the time I first saw this post, and now, it got broken. The first headline is suddenly missing in IE.

During the Reagan administration, the Washington Post once ran a story on how inflation that year turned out to be much less than economists had predicted. The headline: "Cost-of-Living Raises To Be Lower than Expected".

My all-time favorite headline is from the 1970s, from a news item about research findings suggesting a link between nitrates, used as a preservative in bacon, and cancer:

"FDA Says BLT Will Make You DOA"

"Wisconsin Man Runs Over, Eats Seven-Legged Transgendered Deer,"

I believe the correct term for what I saw described is, "intergendered."

As written, one could interpret it as the man was saving plastic while it was eating dolphins, or that he was saving plastic while he was eating dolphins.

For some reason my mind initially imagined the dolphins as being plastic, yet capable of eating. Which, I could understand why they might have been in danger; I'd probably have reached for a gun if I saw such a thing headed my way.

"classic from the Jimmy Carter era, on one of his speeches: "'More Mush From The Wimp.'"

Ummmm, how exactly is that a "journalism blooper" or "miswritten headline"?

Unless the "blooper" is that the paper admitted Jimmuh was a loser.

It was probably a faux pas (in which the truth was accidentally told). I imagine that it was a joke on the part of the copy editor that was supposed to be fixed before the paper went to print.