This piece is designed for any readers that fancy themselves as linguists with a cunning streak – our topic? Headlines.

When writing, the headline is there for a reason. It’s the thing that will attract a reader.

So for me it is an opportunity to have some fun with the reader and give them some enjoyment too.

Likewise when reading others’ work, oftentimes the laugh is because the author may not even see the double entendre in their headline.

A few things led me to this article. I came upon a piece the other day with a headline about someone blowing a gasket. Indeed. . .

In papers, it is the sub editor who combines fixing copy, chopping for length and generally tidying up copy, with the task of writing headlines. The result can be a stroke of pure genius.

For bloggers and other writers, giving a piece a good head is entirely our own responsibility.

Even some experienced writers don’t have the knack. Others have it down to a fine art. A former colleague populated staff magazine headlines with The Beatles’ song titles.

So we had a piece about Norwegian tree research called ‘Norwegians Would’; a piece about trade union negotiations called ‘We Can Work it Out’.

From there we would be on the hunt for sports reports from University teams to see if we could get a chance to insert headlines like ‘Yellow Sub Maureen’ or in the case of a new type of long lasting coloured fabric that had been developed a piece headlined ‘Strawberry Feels Forever’.

The trick is to be able to play on words, often throwing in some sort of mild double entrendre. If you prove to be good at this it can enliven even the dullest piece.

A few tips to bear in mind if you want to either avoid or create headlines with a double meaning.

Read your headline aloud.

Consider any double meanings. If your audience is likely to appreciate the humour then go for it.

Best of all, your headline may have such a clever play on words that no-one except you will get it. How smug will you be? But remember you are writing for an audience.

Try and avoid cliches, some quotes from the Bible and Shakespeare have been done to death – the likes of ‘With a Little Help From My Friends’ and so on.

But by all means have as much craic as you can.

And so what if someone blows a gasket? There’s a load worse things can happen to even the most cunning of linguists.

When I started at the University I was employed as an editor. My boss was an excellent writer, maybe not as good as he thought he was, but damn good nonetheless.

I discovered early on in my career there that a thick skin and the ability to take criticism of my work was going to be fundamental to survival. I would give him pieces that I had written and he would take them home to read and edit.

The first few pages would have the standard corrections, sentences reworked and so on. So far so good. He was a great preacher of the rule of proximity in a sentence. Also, he scythed through repetition with ease. Phrases like ‘forward planning’ which cropped up regularly in University documents were caught by his beady eye.

After I had annoyed him with my lack of precision and poor presentation of thought, he would be well lit as someone I once knew would say. The edits and scrawls on the pages deteriorated badly thereafter. That spelled trouble for me.

A particular piece of nonsense might attract a flurry of ten red exclamation marks. Then more abuse, ‘What does this mean JOSEPH?’. ‘Rubbish’. ‘This word is a noun not a verb, don’t ever write that again!’

Then the final insult. ‘Absolute, total nonsense. See me!!!!!’

However, he drew the line at some phrases. Abusive words. Tool. Asshole. They wouldn’t have featured in his vocabulary at all.

I would dutifully proceed to his office where I would get a real bollocking for the merits and demerits of what I had written. I found it a fascinating learning experience. He gave me the balls to write the way I should have been writing. Also the balls to correct other people’s work no matter who they were.

I’ll tell you this. You need a thick skin to write anything down. I have little respect for the people who are correctors of others’ work but cannot populate a white sheet of paper with their own thoughts and ideas expressed in words. My boss used to call it the Tyranny of the White Page. This from a man who was a master of the Tyrannny of the Red Pen!

I have total respect for people who are prepared to write and even more for those that are prepared to put their thoughts ‘out there’ on paper or online. I encourage people to do that. To suck it and see. Especially blogging, it’s a big world and there’s plenty of room for the good, bad and indifferent. At least they’re writing something!

Occasionally I come across things written that interest me for whatever reason, work, enjoyment. Who knows? Maybe I know the person or their subject matter appears to me be different or appealing. Or perhaps it is a work assignment.

Oftentimes I might consider making a suggestion, but bitter experience tells that because people view writing as an extension of themselves they get wounded very easily.

I will simply leave them to it, and they will be none the wiser but much happier. I won’t be back.

One of the Giant Greenback turtles ashore at Ras al Hadd beach prepares to lay her eggs.

Seven years ago I did a piece of freelance work that paid for myself, Angela, Cáit (then aged almost 3) and Leo (aged 1) to go to Oman for the best part of a month. My brother lived there along with his wife Andrea. It was a brilliant holiday, unlikely to be repeated but you never know.

It was a wonderful experience. At a time when the western media were adding fuel to the fire with ill-advised anti-Islamic sentiment, a few people raised an eyebrow at the thought of us embarking on a trip to the Middle East. Didn’t bother us in the slightest.

We found the Omani people to be very friendly and especially welcoming towards the children. There is a strong sense of family in Islam. At one stage at the swimming pool at the PDO compound an Omani mother dressed head to toe in black abaya and veil jumped into the swimming pool to grab her young son who appeared to be getting into difficulties. It was a surreal image.

One weekend we set off on a marvellous trip to Ras al Hadd beach to see the turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs.  At dawn we returned to watch the new born baby turtles scamper down the beach to the safety of the sea trying to avoid thousands of tiny aggressive crabs waiting to claw their eyes out. At one stage Leo memorably stuck his hand into a bucket and grabbed one of the baby turtles, we have the moment on video for posterity!

We travelled via the Wahiba sands, where we played some hurling. Fifty degrees in the heat, the children themselves knowing it was too hot and taking themselves off into the jeep for some shade.

The trip to the Sultan’s Mosque, the Souk in Old Muscat, and an overnight stay in the Al Bustan Palace Hotel. If you are interested check this place out, unbelieveable.

Would I go back to live there even for a little while? We harboured the idea of taking the children from school and letting them experience Oman and maybe Peru for a year. The only thing really keeping us here are two elderly mothers. But that’s enough. Still you never know.

The Omanis are looking for 100 English teachers from Ireland. Worth a second thought.

The dead horse. Sometimes you've gotta let it lie!

The other day I was giving a presentation about communication for a piece of work. I explained the usual stuff.

Where are you, where do you want to go, how are you going to get there? How can progress be measured? They seemed to take it on board – we will see.

I was making the point that just because communication has taken place doesn’t mean it is effective. Yesterday I had several instances of communication.

In one, the person I was talking to clearly had no understanding of what I was talking about and did not value the sort of work I was proposing that the company should commission. It was basic stuff that would greatly enhance and professionalise their image. But no. DHF – dead horse flogging.

Of another, the less said the better. It has been fraught and difficult also from day one.

As George Bernard Shaw said: ‘The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.’

A business without communication is like Hamlet without the prince. The rest my friends, is silence. So, if any of this rings a bell, lend me your ears!