The Meaning of Headlines: 'eye-watering'

Sky News published an article on 22 December 2016 with the headline: ''Eye-watering' salaries of PM advisers revealed.' What does ‘eye-watering’ mean?

Oxford Dictionaries defines ‘eye-watering’ as ‘causing the eyes to water’ or ‘(especially of a figure or amount) extremely high or large.’ The Free Dictionary defined ‘eye-watering’ as ‘painful or extremely unpleasant.’ MacMillan Dictionary says ‘an eye-watering amount is extremely high or large, and much higher or larger than you would expect.’ It means substantial, considerable, and extensive.

The article states, in the first sentence, that ‘The Prime Minister is accused of breaking promises as it emerges top advisers are earning twice as much as some MPs’ and add that ‘Theresa May's chiefs of staff are paid £140,000 each despite the Prime Minister's pledge to curb the pay of special advisers.’ Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill are among 27 special advisers earning more than the top-bracket salary, and their salaries doubled with their new appointments as advisors.

Given that the British Prime Minister Theresa May earns ‘around £143,000’ and that her advisors are ‘earning nearly double a backbench MP [Member of Parliament], only slightly less than senior Cabinet ministers and about five times the national average wage,’ it would certainly make the average wage earner’s eyes water.

The article concludes with ‘Some of these pay rises are eye-watering.’

Scorecard for the Sky News article’s headline is 100%. Anything painful or unpleasant can make a person’s eyes water. Crying, of course, makes eyes water, but so can irritations, colds and flu, smoke, wind, peeling onions, fumes, allergies, infections, and medical conditions. And someone else’s ‘extremely high or large, and much higher or larger than expected’ salary could make a person’s eyes water too.

http://news.sky.com/story/pm-advisers-eye-watering-salaries-revealed-10704705

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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