HEAD COUNTERS

Your article on Variety’s headline writing left out my favorite one (“Variety’s Scribes: Wordplay Wizards,” by Richard Natale, Aug. 23). A decade ago, the Tawana Brawley case was making headlines and Hollywood types were salivating over the movie prospects. However, they needed an ending, so they were circling until the outcome of the trial.

As their frustrations grew, Variety wrote an article about it under a headline buried in the back pages on June 29, 1988: “Hollywood Offers Abound but Lack of Evidence Means Tawana Boom Delay.”

RICHARD SIGLER

Los Angeles

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Kudos to your scribe, but he didn’t answer one of my questions: When somebody leaves a job Variety writes the he/she “ankled” it. (A recent headline was “Biz Whizzes Ankle Citicorp.”)

Where does that come from?

MARK LEVITON

Granada Hills

It’s a show-biz term for leaving a show, probably influenced by the 1920s’ usage of “ankle” to mean “walk,” according to the Historical Dictionary of American Slang. The folks at Variety theorize that it may have something to do with the ankle being the last thing you see of a departing person.