[Ads-l] "Fog in English Channel: Continent Isolated" (1930, barely)

[Baker, John]

Note that the Manchester Evening News did in fact run the headline "Continent Cut Off by Cable Fault" on May 21, 1940.  The headline writer probably had the existing joke headline in mind.  The article itself is straightforward and not at all jokey; the lead sentence is "Public telephone services between England and the Continent have been cut off since 7 p.m. yesterday."


John Baker



Sent from my iPad

> On Feb 20, 2016, at 7:28 AM, Bonnie Taylor-Blake <b.taylorblake at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> Some time ago we had pushed mentions of this apocryphal headline back
> to early 1931 (see links below for two earlier posts on this).  For
> what it's worth, here's a sighting from the very last day of 1930.
> 
> -- Bonnie
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> What gives "The Criterion" unusual value is the inclusion of foreign
> "chronicles" and reviews of foreign periodicals, represented in the
> present number by an Italian chronicle and review of periodicals from
> Russia and Germany.  "The Criterion" thus becomes a good antidote to
> the attitude which our chief national daily recently expressed so well
> in a time of Channel fog with its bold English headline, "The
> Continent Isolated."
> 
> [From G.E.G.'s short piece on T.S. Eliot's "The Criterion," a literary
> and critical review. The Yorkshire Post, 31 December 1930, Page 4,
> Column 6.]
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2007-July/072575.html
> 
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2010-August/101777.html
> 
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 

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