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News headlines in English may be a little tricky to understand because they are grammatically different from normal sentences in some interesting ways. These changes are made mostly for the purpose of shortening headlines to save space.
For example, the articles “a/an” and “the” are typically left out. Also, as you can see in the following headline, present simple verbs often replace past simple or present perfect verbs.
- Toronto man wins $10 million (headline) = A Toronto man (has) won $10 million.
Auxiliary verbs may also be left out, such as the present continuous auxiliary verb “are” in the following headline. And don’t expect to see a “be” verb when passive voice is used in a headline*!
- Police investigating after store robbed (headline) = The police are investigating after a store was robbed.
Another interesting difference is that infinitive verbs often replace future simple verbs. In the following headline, notice that “will resign” has been replaced by “to resign.”
- Head of telecom company to resign (headline) = The head of the telecom company will resign.
*Note that you will see the infinitive “to be” when it replaces a future simple verb in the passive voice:
- Property taxes to be raised (headline) = Property taxes will be raised.
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