Words on the way out

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I believe the much-heralded death of newspapers — those that are printed on paper and delivered to your doorstep or sold in nearby shops — is still a long way off. But it has occurred to me that, when they do disappear, so, too, will a wonderful collection of English words and phrases.

I’m thinking particularly about “headline words”: impactful, usually monosyllabic, words that aren’t exactly in common usage but have the advantage of being short enough to fit into the small amount of space allowed in your typical tabloid layout.

Since web-page designs are often more flexible, and the common online practice is to use a lot of words in headings for search-engine-optimisation purposes, it’s likely that many headline words are on the way out.

Here are some examples:

Hike: as in “price hike”. (The more common word “rise” has the same letter count, but hike conveys more urgency, or even sinister undertones.)

Raft: not your basic boat, but a “raft of new laws”.

Bid: attempt. Often used as a verb, as in “Brett bids for title.”

Probe: inquiry.

Grab: theft (real, or as a result of a tax hike).

Nab: when “grab” is too long.

Lash, slam, blast: to criticise.

Any others?

(This is an updated version of a post originally published on debritz.net in 2012.)