"Dead Sparrow Overshadows Domino World"

"Dead Sparrow Oveshadows Domino World"

Linguists like Noam Chomsky have given examples of meaningless sentences that can be constructed by using the rules of the language.

The dead sparrow sentence above is not one of these however.

It was the title of an article on ESPN.com a couple of days ago.

Clicking on the article I learned that some Dutch TV station had been trying to break its own record for falling dominos when the doomed sparrow accidentally knocked one over causing 23,000 others to fall before the China Syndrome was stopped.

A security guard then shot the bird dead with an air pistol and the TV station went on to break the record with over 4,000,000 dominos falling.

The assasination of the bird had been witnessed by a crowd however and they were distraught by the incident, hence the "overshadowing."

A web site was instantly created and over 5,000 people signed a petition in memory of the bird.

The marksman received death threats.

The head of a Dutch bird group called for channeling the passion into constructive efforts to save birds and urged calm in the nation.

-Benjamin Harris