Oopsie-Beebs-a-blog™ – no teeth or claws?

This may just be something odd about my always-tenuous grasp of language, so if you are not interested or amused please do move along swiftly and leave me giggling alone here. I'll be fine, really.

I very much like this current BBC News headline:

• Montana woman fights bear with courgette

This alone has pretty much made my day. I sit here, I read it, then I read it again, and again, and it just kind of effortlessly flips back and forth between the two meanings like one of those trick postcards, or a Magic Eye picture or something. And, I must be truthful, I cannot see how it is easily fixed in a short headline, or perhaps at all, so I am (typically) laughing but not helping. Tsk.

The thing, however, which has propelled me right out over the edge and is currently giving me mild breathing difficulties is the line that they've used to link to that story from the News front page:

• Woman repels bear armed only with a courgette

For some reason - and I could not, for a large sum of money or even for some nice yoghurt, tell you why - this removes, for me anyway, all ambiguity and makes it absolutely clear that it is the bear, not the woman, who had the courgette. I can only guess that it was worded carefully to have the opposite effect, but it has triggered something in my tiny, weary brain and it's almost making me cry, and I need to go and have a nice cup of tea and a lie down. Marvellous marvellous stuff.