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This is a headline from the BBC.

"Indian women lead night protests after doctor's rape and murder." BBC - india

When I read this headline, although it seemed ambiguous to me, I relied on grammer and I thought a doctor has raped and murdered someone, because it says "doctor's ..." (a possessive usage) so the following action must belong to the doctor. However when I read the text, I found out it that it was actually a doctor who was raped and murdered.

Such situations drive me crazy, when you interpret things based on the grammar, and the meaning turns out to be the just opposite.

Now, what I wonder, do native speakers also understand it the same as I did because the headline was not well written and ambiguous, or is it me that is missing something with the English language grammar?

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    No. "X's murder" is normally understood to mean "the murder of X (by Y)". NB It's grammar with an 'a'.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Aug 15 at 7:59
  • @Kate Bunting, I see, maybe objects and actions work differently when it comes to possesive, because when you say X's pen, house, happiness, depression etc, all those things belong to X. But when it comes to actions, the action becomes someone else's. For example "protests after John's attack". Then this means "John was attacked, doesn't it?
    – Yunus
    Commented Aug 15 at 8:10
  • Yes, but the murder 'belongs' to X in the sense that they were the victim. Similarly, we say "X's operation" when X is the patient, "X's portrait" when they are the sitter.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Aug 15 at 8:14
  • You could discuss Mike's murder of Nigel but those last words are necessary.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Aug 15 at 9:59
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    You are right to confused. A headline's job is not to summarize unambiguously in six words, but to tease you into reading further. Nothing more or less. Expecting perfect clarity is a mistake.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Aug 15 at 19:49

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protests after doctor's rape and murder

This is clear. It is a clear noun phrase serving as a headline and is nothing even close to a crash blossom.

This shorter noun phrase with the possessive doctor's rape and murder also clearly means the doctor was the victim.

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    What is a 'crash blossom'?
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Aug 15 at 9:58
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    hi @Michael Harvey’, it is a headline written in such a way.
    – Seowjooheng Singapore
    Commented Aug 15 at 10:08
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    +1 for that! Thanks!
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Aug 15 at 10:09
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    A phrase that came into existence in 2009 is still seeking traction, IMO. I'd never it heard it used, so that makes two native speakers who wondered what it was, and I imagine there's 200 million more of them at least.
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 15 at 12:49
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    @TimR - It seems that journo talk is a pretty specialised area. In the UK, a 'Fuck me, Doris!' is 'an exciting and unexpected news story' according to a guide to UK Journalism jargon by the UK Press Gazette. It also included this gem, which points up the level of UK journo humour: Jism/ J’ism – In the early days of Twitter, shorthand for “journalism”. Swiftly abandoned after Twitter dropped its 140-character limit -
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Aug 15 at 18:56

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