Pull twins

Question

What does 'pull twins' mean? Here's the context:

Speed cop pulls twins
A Canadian policeman had to look twice after booking identical twins for speeding on the same day - in the same car.
Constable Chris Legere pulled over an 18-year-old woman, from Akwesasne, for driving at 96mph in the morning, reports Canadian Press.
Hours later, the same car was stopped by Legere for travelling at 92mph in the opposite direction.
He thought at first he'd caught the same person twice but an identification check showed that it was her twin sister.
"They don't only share the same birthday but they share the same offences," said Const. Joel Doiron. "They'll be splitting speeding fines, too."

Guest · Accepted Answer

Looks as though it just means that a Speed Cop (Traffic Officer) pulled over twins (as the article states) for the same crime... Nothing more...

Pieanne · Answer

Same to me...
"pulled over" = arrested for speeding.

Demicjusz · Answer

Why isn't it 'Speed Cop Pulls OVER twins'? The headline isn't very long as it is... Did they have to shorten it, and does it sound OK without "over"?

Abbie1948 · Answer

Avery good question. Newspaper headlines can be quite difficult to understand in a foreign language because they love to make puns and innuendoes. They can also refer to an event (often cultural) from the past which a person from a different culture would't know about.

Had this headline appeared in a Br. newspaper called the Sun, I would suggest that it was a pun on the word "pull", which is a rather vulgar expression meaning to attract a person of the opposite ***. So the expression "to pull twins" may be intended as a joke / pun meaning that he actually "pulled them over" for speeding, but we can read it a different way and understand that the policeman "went on a date" with twin girls.

Demicjusz · Answer

So it could be the following meaning, right?:
1 [T] to attract a person or people:
The show has certainly pulled (in) the crowds.

2 UK INFORMAL to succeed in starting a sexual relationship with someone:
He certainly knows how to pull the birds (= attract female sexual partners).
Did Tracy pull at the nightclub last night?

But if this meaning was not possible, would the headline be an acceptable version of "Speed cop pulls OVER twins"? Or is it the case that because it is NOT, we have to look for a hidden meaning?

LanguageLover · Answer

Hi Demicjusz,
I agree with our friends, I vote for "pull over".

Abbie1948 · Answer

"Pull over" is certainly the correct expression. However, newsapaer headlines like to use short, eye-catching headlines which rouse the imagination. that increases sales.

As I said, sometimes you need to understand idioms and puns, and perhaps a little cultural histor.

Here is a headline from an English newspaper from a while back:

"Baby elephant brings the house down" beneath the headline was a picture of Wayne Rooney, a young English football player. Clue - he had scored a hat trick (3 goals)

Have you any idea what it might mean? [:^)]

LanguageLover · Answer

Hi Abbie,
The expression "hat trick" was tricky itself, but not difficult to find. But I couldn't find any trace of "baby elephant" in that sense. Any hints? Anyway, it was a good one, thanks.
Cheers,

Abbie1948 · Answer

I posted this as an example of how difficult newspaper headlines can be. Like "Cop pulls over twins"

OK here's the background.

"Hat trick" - as you may have discovered, is an idiom meaning to be successful 3 times in a row - score 3 goals, win 3 elections etc.

"Baby elephant" is also used idiomatically. "To act like a baby elephant" means to be clumsy - have you ever seen a baby elephant try to control it's trunk? It's all over the place.

"To bring the house down" is another idiom meaning to get great public acclaim - it is often used about a theatrical performance, meaning that the applause was tremendous.

OK, what have we got so far:

Someone clumsy scored 3 goals to great public acclaim. (It was in an international match - he was 17 years old, and he was a bit chubby) (chubby = a bit fat, but in a nice way, like a child)

But there's more - and this is not idiomatic, but cultural.

Many years ago there was a children's tv programme called Blue Peter. ( I'm laughing as I write this, because I saw the programme!) They brought a baby elephant into the studio, and it ran amok! It raced all round the studio, pulling the keeper behind it, and made a terrible mess all over the floor, if you know what I mean.

So now this incomprehensible headline means

"A chubby, clumsy young man scored three goals to great public acclaim. He raced around the pitch and nobody could catch him or control him, and he made a compete mess of the opposition"

Not a very catch headline, I think you'll agree.

(In England, there is a sort of competition to see which paper can get the best headlines. This one came from The Times.)

This headline then, in 6 words, contained 2 idioms and a cultural reference. Very clever. This is why people have such difficulty reading and understanding newspaper headlines.

LanguageLover · Answer

Thanks Abbie, yep, it was very clever! This is irrelevant, but reading your comment reminded me of the name of the puppet show "Peggy hit ....". I do not remember whom was hit by Peggy, poor him! It's interesting how we name things in different cultures, and how expressions come to existance. I've come across a few expressions that bear similar meanings with similar words in English and Persian. I'm collecting them and will post them in a new thread. I'd like to know if their similarity is due to the same origin, or because we human beings tend to think similarly. What do you think? Or similar circumstances may lead to similar expressions! I don't know, probably all of the three hypotheses are correct!

Cheers,

Pull twins

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