I just read a post on Language Log about a big controversy over headlines. Some newspaper headlines try to save space by leaving out verbs and articles: “Man Shot in Street” instead of “A Man Was Shot in the Street.” Condensing your headline to a few succinct words is a great idea; strip away too many words, and you’re likely to confuse readers.

Glance at Craigslist, and you’ll find even tighter headlines, like “lg 3bd, 3bth, cmp rmd, hdwd, pk, best loc in town, pets.” Wow! That headline gives me a lot of information in a very small space — such a small space that I have to sit down and carefully unpack those abbreviations to figure out what’s been said. Oh, nice. It’s a “large three-bedroom, three-bath” apartment. But I’m not sure what “cmp rmd” means. “Complimentary room-dusting”? “Camp remodeling”? If you want to tell me that the flat’s been “completely remodeled” without taking up much headline space, please do so in the body of the advertisement. If I don’t understand your abbreviation within half a second, I’m likely to keep scanning.

Which brings me to another point: when readers scan long lists of headlines and titles — like on Craigslist, or a search engine results page — they’re often looking for particular words and phrases. Their brains skip over all the clutter and lead them to the words they want. When moving so quickly, the brain lumps abbreviations in with the clutter. No matter how much space you save, if I skip it, it’s all wasted.