The BBC website currently has the following headline:

Iraqi al-Qaeda commander ‘seized’

Why the inverted commas around the word ‘seized’?

There is nothing in the ensuing story to explain why, unless the idea is to imply that the Iraqi forces who say that they have done the seizing are lying or wrong.

Why not ‘Iraq’ al-Qaeda commander seized?

Or Iraq ‘Al-Qaeda’ commander seized?

Or Iraq Al-Qaeda ‘commander’ seized?

When I was a student it was all the rage to throw such punctuation around, somehow giving the impression that one was evincing an oh-so-clever and cynical relativism, questioning everything in sight.

Now the BBC has caught up.