there will be hackneyed headlines

allow me to take the occasion of the oscars to bring up something that has been bothering me lately: lazy headline writers of the world, the jig is up! time to retire the cliche "there will be ..." and "no country for ..." constructs. they've both been done to death. behold, from this month alone (i'd love to lay the blame for this on the writer's strike, but that somehow seems like wishful thinking):

1. There Will be Disappointment; Cinematical, 2/24/08
2. There Will be Oscars; Times-Picayune, 2/24/08
3. There Will be Gold; Baltimore Sun, 2/24/08
4. There Will be Confusion; McClatchy Newspapers, 2/24/08
5. There Will be Booze; New York Post, 2/24/08
6. There Will be ... Oscar!; The Witchita Eagle, 2/24/08
7. Oscars: This Year There Will be Milk; Anderson Herald Bulletin, 2/24/08
8. There Will be Fun Trivia About The Oscars; Cleveland Plain Dealer, 2/23/08
9. There Will be Blood; The Mirror, 2/23/08
10. There Will be Oscar Specials; Suburbarazzi, 2/22/08
11. There Will be Oscars; New York Times, 2/22/08
12. Cool Swag of the Weel: There Will be Bullwhips; Cinematical, 2/22/08
13. There Will be Gold: Oscar Picks; Express From The Washington Post (wtf?), 2/22/08
14. There Will be Cake! Portal 2 Confirmed; PC Gaming, 2/22/08
15. There Will be Blood; Seattle Post Intelligencer, 2/21/08
16. There Will be Oscars; The Guardian UK, 2/21/08
17. There Will be Stars on Sunday at the Academy Awards in Hollywood; Voice of America, 2/21/08
18. There Will be Lots of Gazing at Stars on Oscar Night; The Tampa Tribune, 2/21/08
19. Hollywood and the Internet: There Will be Blood; The Economist, 2/21/08
20. There Will be Gloom and Doom at the Oscars; New Zealand Herald, 2/21/08
21. Drink Up: There Will be Rum; Seattle Post Intelligencer, 2/20/08
22. There Will be Oil; The Grist, 2/20/08
23. There Will be Blood Over Stolen Laptop; Silicon Republic, 2/20/08
24. Eco-homes: There Will be Floods; The Independent UK, 2/20/08
25. For Scott Rudin, There will be quality; The LA Times, 2/19/08
26. There Will be Memories; New York Times, 2/19/08
27. There Will be Blood on CBS via 'Dexter'; San Jose Mercury News, 2/15/08
28. State Budget, There Will be Blood; Arizona Daily Star, 2/15/08
29. There Will be Blood; New York Times (Maureen Dowd), 2/3/08

There Will be Beating a Dead Horse. but wait! there's more:

1. No Country for Lumpy Thighs; Chicago Tribune, 2/24/08
2. No Country for Young Men; The Grist, 2/24/08
3. No Country for Old Systems; Multichannel News, 2/23/08
4. No Country for Oscar Men; Kolkata Newsline, 2/22/08
5. No Country for Just Art; Economic Times of India, 2/22/08
6. No Country for Paul Thomas Anderson; Blogcritics.org, 2/21/08
7. No Country for Old Dictators; Slate, 2/19/08
8. No Country for Old Phones; Las Cruces Sun News, 2/19/08
9. No Country for Two Best Pictures; The Simon, 2/19/08
10. No Country for Inattentive Critics; New Republic, 2/18/08
11. No Country for Safe Motels?; AOL News Bloggers (Mo Rocca!), 2/18/08
12. No Country for Young Men; The District Weekly, 2/13/08
13. No Country for ... Well, Anyone; Daily Green, 2/13/08
14. No Country for Old Movies; IHT, 2/12/08
15. No country for old men; Guardian Unlimited, 2/11/08
16. No country for old oil; The Daily Titan, 2/10/08
17. No Country for Old Metaphors; New York Times, 2/5/08
18. No Country for Old People?; Inside Bay Area, 2/3/08

i could go on, but i'm starting to go blind. besides you probably get the point. i'd like to think that with the oscars finally going down tonight this phenomenon will become a thing of the past. but this blog is No Country for Such Optimism.