The New York Sunday News, which has the most readers in the U.S. (circ. 4,650,000) makes certain assumptions about them: 1) they are literate enough to read picture captions and comic balloons; 2) they are baseball fans; 3) they savvy cop talk. These assumptions underlay a News headline last week:
JUG UMP HITTER ON ROLLING RAP
Constant readers decoded it at a glance. It wasn't the second verse of the Hut-Sut Song, but the shortest way of saying that a man who had once slugged an umpire had now been arrested on a charge of picking the pockets of a sleeping citizen.
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