The Meaning of Headlines: 'brickbats'

The Meaning of Headlines: 'brickbats' - transport

The (Adelaide) Advertiser announced on June 11, 2015, that there was ‘Praise and brickbats for revised O-Bahn plan.’ What does ‘brickbats’ mean?

The name, O-Bahn Busway, is a derivative of omnibus (O), meaning ‘for all people’ and bahn, the German word for railway. It is an extension to the existing 1986 guided rapid bus transit system servicing the northeastern suburbs of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It currently carries an estimated 31,000 people per week day.

The government’s O-Bahn project is a transport intervention costing $160 million to reduce traffic congestion in the city, which was revised to reflect community and business concerns. The changes included extending an underground component of the bus tunnel so that it surfaces closer to Grenfell Street in the city, creating an extra 50 car parking spaces on roads nearby.

Dictionary.com defines brickbats as ‘pieces of broken brick, especially ones used as missiles’ and ‘an unkind or unfavorable remark; caustic criticism.’ Hence the headline intends to show that the plan for the O-Bahn extension has received both praise and criticism. Therefore, let’s look for evidence of both praise and criticism in the article.

The Advertiser states that ‘The changes were widely welcomed by community and business groups, who had campaigned against the project’ because they said the transport extension would ‘butcher’ a park. The article adds that the government ‘backflipped on the most controversial aspects of the O-Bahn extension.’ The conclusion was that ‘Traffic congestion on one of the city’s main thoroughfares as a result of the O-Bahn extension has not been fixed despite revised plans.’ Therefore, indeed, the article shows that the O-Bahn extension has received both praise and criticism.

Scorecard for The Advertiser headline: 100%. Although people no longer throw brickbats, they certainly can hurl insults and criticism for something they don’t like – in this case, the response from the government to revise the transport plan to meet community concerns. The use of the term ‘brickbats’ is therefore interesting, because it denotes stronger resentment of the plan than merely stating that the community had ‘concerns.’

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