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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Roy Greenslade

'Conniptions' makes a newspaper headline debut

I am indebted to Lucy Kellaway and today's Financial Times for an addition to my vocabulary.

She writes about meeting a Chinese journalist who told her that "Chinese workers moan the whole time and have conniptions if any colleague is given any privilege they are not."

So the sub headlined her column: "China conniptions rekindle fondness for western ways."

Conniptions, according to the wiktionary, are fits of anger or panic. And the word's appearance in a newspaper headline may well be a first.

The online version of Lucy's article is more prosaically headlined: "China rekindles fondness for western ways". I guess conniptions are not SEO-friendly.

I also note that the front page blurb avoided the term too, preferring the blander "Shouting and snitching: office politics in China".

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