Cutline quiz

[Peter Fisk]

Based on this cutline, how many people would you expect to see in the photo?

Yolanda Welch, from left, Michael Welch Jr.’s mother; Jennifer Smith, Welch Jr. and Lori Romero’s daughter; and Jaylee Smith, 17 months, Smith’s daughter, were on hand for Friday’s verdict at the Larimer County Justice Center.

See solution here.

[Shannon]

Here's what I originally thought:

Yolanda Welch, from left, Michael Welch Jr.’s mother; Jennifer Smith, Welch Jr. and Lori Romero’s daughter; and Jaylee Smith, 17 months, Smith’s daughter, were on hand for Friday’s verdict at the Larimer County Justice Center.

I knew that Michael Welch Jr.’s mother and Smith’s daughter were appositives (though I still had to think about it), but that second phrase really threw me off (I think it was the "and").

How can anyone write that? Any reader would probably give up halfway through that caption.

[Gerri Berendzen]

I thought 5 people as well. When I saw the photo, and I thought about it, it made some sense.
This seems like a case of a problem I see in many cutlines — trying to put too much explanation in one sentence. I would have noted in some way that they were members of Welch's family, and explain the exact relationship in the next sentence.

[editer]

I was perhaps tipped off by the posing of the question, but my first thought was three.

[dfisher]

OMG. A case where even the super secret punctuation decoder ring fails under the weight of too much shorthand.

The problem for me began with the odd position of "from left" and continued with "Welch Jr." I just can't process people that way. Makes me go backward.

I would have used more words for clarity. I guess this is a good example of Ruth Walker's definition of editing, where the push for ever shorter copy meets the irresistible need for clarity:

Yolanda Welch, Michael Welch Jr.’s mother, left; Jennifer Smith, the daughter of Michael Welch Jr. and Lori Romero; and 17-month-old Jaylee Smith, Jennifer Smith’s daughter, were on hand for Friday’s verdict at the Larimer County Justice Center.

[fev]

Good start, Fish, but we can still make it clearer:

Yolanda Welch, Michael Welch Jr.’s mother, left; Jennifer Smith, the daughter of Michael Welch Jr. and Lori Romero; and 17-month-old Jaylee Smith, Jennifer Smith’s daughter, gesture as they react to Friday’s verdict at the Larimer County Justice Center.[/i]