Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

[Travis B.]

The [item] is as visible as required by regulations

This one seemed obvious to me - that there is a minimum visibility required by regulations, and the item met just that minimum and no more.

[Salmoneus]

A Valentine's card for a wife costs £2, despite looking remarkably similar to one for a husband, priced at £2.50

Even without context, which I think is either implicit or quite clear, I think this is pretty good parsable? Or do you think anyone would mistaken the price for a husband to be 2,50?


JAL

As Soap points out, the real ambiguity here is what "card for a wife" means - whether it's a card provided to a wife (to give to her husband) or a card provided to a husband (to give to his wife).

For instance, here "cards for wives are cheaper" means that the thing bought by a married man is cheaper. But in "therapy for wives is cheaper" it means that the thing bought by a married woman is cheaper.

[Salmoneus]

The [item] is as visible as required by regulations

I may be missing something... this seems awkward but not difficult. I take it as meaning that regulations require [item] to be visible, and there are minimums for 'visibility', and the product has met the minimum.

It'd sound better to me with an extra is: "The [item] is as visible as is required by regulations." Though honestly I'd just rewrite it: "The [item] is as visible as regulations require", or "The [item] meets visibility regulations."

Nope. As I think LB gathered, what they meant was that the item was, as visible, as required by regulations. Except that those commas aren't actually grammatically required, they're just necessary there for the meaning to be understood without context.


[The thing in question is inherently only partly visually assessable. Somebody assessed it visually, but made clear that they were only assessing "[the item] as visible", so don't sue them if there's some terrible counter-regulatory flaw that they couldn't possibly have seen. And what they concluded about "the item as visible" was that it was "as required by regulations".]

[linguoboy]

[The thing in question is inherently only partly visually assessable. Somebody assessed it visually, but made clear that they were only assessing "[the item] as visible", so don't sue them if there's some terrible counter-regulatory flaw that they couldn't possibly have seen. And what they concluded about "the item as visible" was that it was "as required by regulations".]

Oh wow, that's not the interpretation I came away with. I thought "as visible" had the meaning here of "as can be plainly seen". That is, I thought the form had an image attached so that the relevant authority could see for themselves that the item was as required by regulations. According to what you're saying here, I would have expected something like "as observed".

Brevity--the soul of ambiguity!

[Salmoneus]

[The thing in question is inherently only partly visually assessable. Somebody assessed it visually, but made clear that they were only assessing "[the item] as visible", so don't sue them if there's some terrible counter-regulatory flaw that they couldn't possibly have seen. And what they concluded about "the item as visible" was that it was "as required by regulations".]

Oh wow, that's not the interpretation I came away with. I thought "as visible" had the meaning here of "as can be plainly seen". That is, I thought the form had an image attached so that the relevant authority could see for themselves that the item was as required by regulations. According to what you're saying here, I would have expected something like "as observed".

Brevity--the soul of ambiguity!

Oh! OK, yes, I can see your reading now. Although for me, I think "as observed" would actually make your reading less likely than "as visible"! Though it would help rule out the "as _ as required" reading. Similarly, "as can be seen" would make clear that it's not the latter reading, but wouldn't help disambiguate between the "as we could see when we looked" and "as you can see from this photo" readings...

[linguoboy]

Oh! OK, yes, I can see your reading now. Although for me, I think "as observed" would actually make your reading less likely than "as visible"! Though it would help rule out the "as _ as required" reading. Similarly, "as can be seen" would make clear that it's not the latter reading, but wouldn't help disambiguate between the "as we could see when we looked" and "as you can see from this photo" readings...

As I hinted above, these attempts to distill the information you're giving down to as few words as possible (and to use an impersonal voice which precludes such perfectly clear options as "as far as I could see") often cause more problems than they solve.

[zompist]

Not a garden path, but reading this tweet—

"This copy of Alice in Wonderland was posted on Reddit, due to water damage it's grown spores and has actual mushrooms growing out of it."

https://twitter.com/SelineSigil9/status ... 5676697605

—my first thought was "Duh, don't post on Reddit, you'll always get water damage."

(Since I'm engrossed in syntax, my second thought is to wonder what the deep structure here is. What was "posted on Reddit" was not "this copy of Alice", but "this photograph of [a copy of Alice]".)

[Salmoneus]

Not a garden path, but reading this tweet—

"This copy of Alice in Wonderland was posted on Reddit, due to water damage it's grown spores and has actual mushrooms growing out of it."

https://twitter.com/SelineSigil9/status ... 5676697605

—my first thought was "Duh, don't post on Reddit, you'll always get water damage."

(Since I'm engrossed in syntax, my second thought is to wonder what the deep structure here is. What was "posted on Reddit" was not "this copy of Alice", but "this photograph of [a copy of Alice]".)

I'd count that as a garden path, caused by the flagrant and infuriating failure to employ a semicolon where required. [I read 'this... was posted on reddit, due to water damage', and then the sentence just kept on going...]

But I disagree with your last paragraph. I don't think you have to hypothesise a virtual argument (the photograph), I think you can just broaden the meaning of "to post [to an online forum]". I think it's common for people to use "I posted [X]" to mean "I made a post introducing [X]" or "I made a post detailing [X]". Like, "I posted my car in the for-sale section".

[zompist]

That may well be.

I would note that the tweet came with the photo. So it feels like the writer is trying to say several things at once: "This (waves at photo) was posted on Reddit. It's a copy of Alice. Due to water damage..."

[Imralu]

Uber Eats Driver Allegedly Shoots And Kills Customer In Atlanta

[Travis B.]

Somehow I wouldn't be surprised if Uber ate someone.

[Soap]

That's a good one. I saw the same story with the word "eats" in all caps which helped me parse it but it still has the same words.

[linguoboy]

From a slide in today's presentation on our new annual review process: "The 'how' work gets done informs rating."

[zompist]

LB: I'm not sure I can make sense of that unless I delete the initial 'the': [How work gets done] informs (your) rating.

Here's one I just saw:

Michelle Obama's Memoir Becoming Will Be On Store Shelves a Week After the Midterm Elections

No problem unless you miss the italicization, which I did for a moment.

[Salmoneus]

LB: I'm not sure I can make sense of that unless I delete the initial 'the': [How work gets done] informs (your) rating.

Adding the 'the' is definitely a Thing now, though. But I wonder if this is contamination from (/confusion with/analogy from) the genitive form? That is, with "the 'how' of...", which is conventionally grammatical. I.e. maybe "How work gets done" + "The 'how' of how work gets done" = "The 'how' work gets done"?

[for me, LB's quote is now sort of grammatical, although not conventionally so]

[Vijay]

This comment exchange from the comments to this YouTube video:

"I love how Judge Judy's only prejudice is stupid people."
"Quite funny to see that she’s usually right about that"
"I believe most people are."

[linguoboy]

My sister just sent me a beaut: "I saw this flower out walking and wondered if you knew what it was?"

I told her I didn't know any flowers that could walk on their own.

[linguoboy]

"Sessions has so far weathered the incessant incoming from the White House and sources close to the attorney general have told CNN that he is unlikely to go anywhere soon."

On first read, I thought a noun had been erroneously deleted. (And please don't judge me for reading a news article from CNN.)

[mèþru]

France anger after MP shares letter with racist death threats

[alynnidalar]

"Sessions has so far weathered the incessant incoming from the White House and sources close to the attorney general have told CNN that he is unlikely to go anywhere soon."

Multiple garden paths there fore me. First of all, "Sessions" could throw you off if you expected the common noun. Second was "the incessant incoming" (which still sounds bizarre to me), and third was "from the White House and sources close to the attorney general". They could really do with a comma between "White House" and "and sources..."

[Salmoneus]

France anger after MP shares letter with racist death threats

'The letter sent to Ms Avia, a member of France's National Assembly from President Emmanuel Macron's En Marche movement, said...'

[mèþru]

Before I read the article, I thought a far-right MP wrote a racist letter threating some celebrity.

[Salmoneus]

Before I read the article, I thought a far-right MP wrote a racist letter threating some celebrity.

Obviously. And I was pointing out a similar gardenpath in the body of the article.


Anyway, Le Pen's been charged with what I thought at first was a hilarious gardenpath, but instead just turns out to be France:
posting "violent messages that incite terrorism or pornography or seriously harm human dignity, and that can be viewed by a minor."


[see, when I read that the law was against distributing "violent messages that incite terrorism or pornography", I thought 'ha! I think they meant to put a comma there!', but no, reading the whole sentence it does indeed seem to be messages inciting 'terrorism or pornography' that are banned. Those two are so hard to tell apart...]

[Travis B.]

I am amused by the idea of "inciting pornography".

[mèþru]

How does one incite pornography?