Heads up: The Yoda-like grammar of the headline of this post is an extreme example of the kind of undumb headlines you, gentle reader, can continue to expect from the crack editorial staff of Pensito Review. Why do we feel compelled to issue a reassuring statement like that to the smart people who visit our humble “politics & media” site?

Because of Google. And Yahoo. And RSS feeds. And newsbots.

See, there was this article in the New York Times on Sunday about how news organizations were experimenting with “dumbing down” their headlines so they would make more sense in a list of headlines supplied in an RSS feed.

So news organizations large and small have begun experimenting with tweaking their Web sites for better search engine results. But software bots are not your ordinary readers: They are blazingly fast yet numbingly literal-minded. There are no algorithms for wit, irony, humor or stylish writing. The software is a logical, sequential, left-brain reader, while humans are often right brain.

In newspapers and magazines, for example, section titles and headlines are distilled nuggets of human brainwork, tapping context and culture. “Part of the craft of journalism for more than a century has been to think up clever titles and headlines, and Google comes along and says, ‘The heck with that,’ ” observed Ed Canale, vice president for strategy and new media at The Sacramento Bee.

Well, we here at Pensito Review join Mr. Canale in a hearty “The heck with that � squared!”

Lest you worry that we will now begin to mine the arcane or bust our frontal lobes coming up with cool headlines, we would like to take a moment to explore Pensito Review’s history of headline hepness. Here are a few examples from the archives:

• “Doctor My Ears,” heads a post by Trish kvetching about how reporters always use the title “Dr.” before Condoleeza Rice’s name.
• “The White House Hopes You Won’t Read This,” is a self-referential head from Jon about how the WH released news of its social program cuts Friday evening � after the press corps had gone home.
• “Woodward Wants to Be Sweetheart of Cellblock C,” was my take on Bob Woodward’s sweet offer to do some of press paragon Judith Miller’s prison time.
• A truly great head that didn’t overtax the typesetters was Trish’s “MSM MIA,” about how the mainstream media missed a critical story.
• Jon’s “The Lying Liar�s Dumb Lie” headline demonstrates a classic rhetorical conceit involving repetition that has a Greek name that I’ve forgotten.
• And my “Bush: Et Tu, Silvio?” just shows we can do classical literary references in other languages.

So fear not, noble, and hopefully regular, reader. We ain’t dumbing down our headlines for Google, though we do promise to lay off the obnoxious Yoda grammatical constructions.