The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.

Big Deal, So Can a Bucket
“Newly Found Planet Can Hold Water”–headline, FoxNews.com, March 22

Questions Nobody Is Asking
“Why Is Every Celebrity Drinking Coconut Water?”–headline, E! Online, March 23

Bottom Stories of the Day

  • “Dog the Bounty Hunter Appearance at Walmart Canceled”–headline, Star Press (Muncie, Ind.), March 23
  • “Man Jailed on His Birthday”–headline, Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Va.), March 22

Nanu Nanu!
There’s a comic trope in science fiction: a nonhuman character, whether alien (Mork in “Mork & Mindy”) or robot (Data in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”) whose struggles to understand humor are often funnier than the jokes they cannot comprehend.

Such a creature appears to be Joel Schwartzberg, who, prompted by our Friday column, wrote a…post titled “WSJ Goof: Ridiculing a Correct Headline.” Here it is:

The venerable Wall Street Journal had a good laugh at the expense of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Toledo Blade in its March 19 roundup, noting the Blade headline:

Luckey teen wins Blade spelling bee

. . . and condescendingly commenting:

He’s Luckey the Blade Can’t Spell Any Better Than He Can

Problem is–and they’d known this had they read the lead–“Luckey” is the name of the kid’s town in Ohio. Young Lucas Liner won the regional bee on the word “suasible”–capable of being induced into some mental position.

Perhaps the WSJ writer had been “suased” into lazy editing?

In the comments below Schwartzberg’s post, [a reader] tries to explain the concept (quoting verbatim): “the headline was misread on purpose. it’s from a wsj humor column.” In Morkian style, Schwartzberg replies:

Really? Looking at the page, I think it’s obvious they considered it humor because they thought it was an ironic error. There’s no humor or point in calling out a headline that has the “potential of being ironic.” Writing “the blade can’t spell” speaks for itself, I believe.

So the question is: Joel Schwartzberg, alien or robot? There are other possibilities, of course. It may be that he is human and suffers from a condition akin to blindness or deafness–a congenital or acquired lack of the ability to sense humor. Or perhaps–and this is a long shot–he’s being so deadpan that we’re missing the joke.

In any case, it’s nothing we need to worry about. Luckey for us!

For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.