Telstra-watchers and connoisseurs of English will both appreciate a headline on the front page of The Age’s business section today: “Crazy John’s plans to abandon Telstra.”

The story is about the mobile phone dealer Crazy John’s, which plans to
become a virtual network operator in its own right. In other words, the
“Crazy John’s” in the headline is a proper noun, and “plans” is a verb.

But since Telstra has been having problems recently with a person
called John, a casual reader is quite likely to take “plans” as a noun
and “Crazy John’s” as a straight possessive. Other ways of putting it,
such as “Crazy John’s to abandon Telstra,” would have removed the
ambiguity. But why spoil the fun?