n. An ambiguous or misleading headline, particularly one that leads to a comical or nonsensical interpretation.
2014
The BBC headline is supposed to convey the notion that the law firm representing George Clooney’s girlfriend confirms that the two have agreed to get married. But its syntactical ambiguity makes a lovely crash blossom.
2012
Many crash blossoms come from Britain, where editors often assume the reader is familiar with the characters and plot of an ongoing story, and so pile up long noun-noun compounds that tell the whole chapter, like "Sex quiz cricket ace in hotel suicide leap".
2009 (earliest)
linked? the hed makes it look like she was a survivor of the crash, but not that case. what do you call these kinds of strangely phrased hedlines? is there a word for them?
Crash blossoms?
Crash blossoms?
This phrase (itself somewhat ambiguous and misleading) comes from the headline "Violinist linked to JAL crash blossoms" that appeared a few years ago in the publication Japan Today. See this Testy Copy Editors thread for the full story. (However, be prepared to come across a surprising number of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. Perhaps, like the proverbial chef who makes only peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches at home, copy editors write sloppy prose when they're not on the job.)