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Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 5
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 5 |
Jay Leno frequently runs similar types of "abiguous statements" past his Tonight Show audience on Monday nights (the segment is known as "Headlines"). I'm getting better at spotting them right away thanks to my weekly 'practice'!
American English | Yooper | with a dash of Yiddish
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,534 Likes: 1
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 10,534 Likes: 1 |
Surely you recall "the man who owned the lumber mill's daughter..."? That one's even older than I am!
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Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 19
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 19 |
I don't do much diagramming anymore. Is that why I fail to see any ambiguity here? It seems plain to me that the subject shot at an object who had done A and B. It also seems, as someone else has noted, that it would take very convoluted thinking to read it in any other way.
I read a headline at Crime Library's Daily Crime News within the last wek or so "Boyfriend fingers prostitute". Now that's ambiguous. Or is it ambidextrous?
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
The deputy shot at the robbers. That much is clear even to those who would strain at gnats. The problem seems to be that some sre unsure whether it was the sheriff or the deputy that was off duty and whether it was the robbers or the deputy that held up the store at gunpoint. But I agree with you that it takes some real twisting and turning to misunderstand the sentence.
And welcome aBoard.
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