Journalese of the Day: Trading barbs

This might be headed “Barb trade of the day.” I just saw a Boston Globe headline, Sept. 7, 2016, “Clinton, Trump trade barbs on national security.” Wondering how often they trade barbs,I went to Google, and got 3,300 hits for “Clinton,Trump trade barbs…” and 7,090 for “Trump, Clinton trade barbs….” Guess there’s no requirement for equality and balance in barb-trade headlinese.

-Robert Skole