The NY Review of Books is still primarily designed as a print publication. The title here shows up on their table of contents page, so you might better describe it as “flipbait”. Notice that on the NYRB ToC page, the title of the book under review – Buried Ideas: Legends of Abdication and Ideal Government in Early Chinese Bamboo-Slip Manuscripts – is also printed, giving additional context to the review.
There’s nothing especially “these days” about magazine essay titles with puns in them. Catching a reader’s eye and enticing him to start reading is the title’s primary purpose. This isn’t a newspaper story, where the reader might be trying to get a clear idea of the day’s main events just by skimming the headlines.
There’s nothing especially “these days” about magazine essay titles with puns in them. Catching a reader’s eye and enticing him to start reading is the title’s primary purpose. This isn’t a newspaper story, where the reader might be trying to get a clear idea of the day’s main events just by skimming the headlines.