I for one am too tired of “linkbaiting” titles (ala “XX lists”, rants or how-tos). In an effort to find examples of some creative titles I’ve been browsing hot Digg posts and the most viral celebrity blog I am aware of – Perez Hilton – to spot some linguistic and semantic tactics behind linkbait:
1. Abbreviations – using popular abbreviation reflecting either slang or professional jargon vocabulary:
2. Playing with antonyms (words with opposite semantic meanings), e.g. substituting a word in a well known (or set) phrases with its antonym:
3. Playing with well-known quotes:
4. Using oxymoron – combining what normally cannot be combined (e.g. poor and rich):
5. Playing with homophones (words with a different origin and meaning but having the same pronunciation) or using “pun” – deliberately mixing two similar-sounding words:
6. Incomplete sentence (i.e. “you guess what should follow“):
7. Lexical “distortion” – often used in slang – creating new words by intentionally incorrect word spelling:
8. Semantic “distortion” (somewhat related to #2) – substituting one word in a set phrase with any other word for comic / unexpected meaning:
9. Playing with neologisms (i.e. creating new words):
10. Creating words that have two meanings and can be interpreted in two (often opposing) ways:
11. Question-answer play: asking and instantly answering a question:
12. Repetition: intentional usage of one and the same word twice:
Post image: fish cartoon
