Betteridge's Law

See also: Betteridge's law

English

Proper noun

Betteridge's Law

1. Alternative letter-case form of Betteridge's law
   • 2012 March 3, Jon Evans, “Pair Programming Considered Harmful?”, in TechCrunch‎^[1], archived from the original on 15 July 2017:

     No, no, hell no. The true answer is that there is no one answer; that what works best is a dynamic combination of solitary, pair, and group work, depending on the context, using your best judgement. Paired programming definitely has its place. (Betteridge’s Law strikes again!) In some cases that place may even be “much of most days.” But insisting on 100 percent pairing is mindless dogma, and like all mindless dogma, ultimately counterproductive.

   • 2014 March 25, Jonathan Zittrain, “No, Barack Obama isn’t Handing Control of the Internet over to China: The Misguided Freakout over ICANN”, in The New Republic‎^[2], archived from the original on 30 March 2014:

     And from the National Journal: “When U.S. Steps Back, Will Russia and China Control the Internet?” As Betteridge’s Law of Headlines suggests, the answer is no.

   • 2016, Tim Holmes, “How to Create Great News Headlines”, in Subediting and Production for Journalists: Print, Digitial, Social (Media Skills), 2nd edition, Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 88:

     Andrew Marr believes that a headline with a question mark at the end is 'often a scare story, or an attempt to elevate some run-of-the-mill piece of reporting into a national controversy and, preferably, a national panic.' (Marr 2005: 253). His advice to readers is – 'If the headline asks a question, try answering "no"' (loc. cit.). This motto has since been parlayed into a 'law' – Betteridge's Law, named for Ian Betteridge after he wrote a piece for Technovia questioning the validity of a news item published under a headline that ended in a question mark […].