zompist bboard

7 years old and very much on purpose (try not to groan -- it might be thought of as inappropriate)

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story ... 01&cc=5739

A recent headline from a local paper read "Ginnell Couple Celebrates Halloween". It was about some folks who have a big display every year for the holiday. It was confusing enough that I thought it was kind of funny that some locals had a name so close to the town's. Then I realized, yes, the paper misspelt the name of the town - in an inch and a half high headline on the front page. Doh!

Saw this on twitter: "There is a great awareness campaign for men abused as boys using guitars. http://1bluestring.org"

Delicious:

Manufacturing Data Helps Invigorate Wall Street

Not strictly a garden path, but I have to admit that when I read Mali Rebels Push On Despite French Strikes I imagine a cadre of African resistance fighters inconvenienced by having to find some alternative to taking the RER and Métro.

From a Twitter promotion: "UK fans of @neilhimself, why don't you like our shiny new Ocean at the End of the Lane facebook page?"

Do spanish headlines qualify?

" Celulares y Niños: los riesgos de su uso "
roughly
cellphones and kids: the risks of using them

xDDDD

This one shouldn't really be here, since the metanymy is well-established and clear, but I laughed anyway:
"Tory chairs urge gay marriage delay". [BBC]

[If only they'd gone with 'Tory chairs urging gay marriage delay', then there could have been syntactic as lexical confusion...]

Just a typo in a lede, but I like the idea of a reference to the postponement of a team's tenure as league champion: "Baltimore was almost done in Sunday by a reign delay."

FB Friend on Benny XVI's retirement: "The first Pope in six hundred years is resigning due to health concerns."

Well, he's better off than the last 50 of them who resigned when the biggest concern that made them resign was that they where dead, or partly dying. But mostly dead. This is almost one of these a pop-corn moments.

Bil-whatever, your comment makes no sense whatsoever.

I think he means other popes died.

Found this one on Het Laatste Nieuws:

Dove voorzitter van dovenclub voor rechter voor bestelen van doven.

Not really a garden path, but "Deaf chairman of deaf club called before a judge for stealing from deaf people."

I think they just really like the word "doof / doven"

Also, I suffered minor bilingual confusion for thinking he stole doves -- as in the bird -- before realizing that would be duif or duiven in Dutch.

There's one tabloid journalist Tuomas Manninen who's recently produced the following brain farts among others:

A human was conceived on a rug - see the picture
A retired biology and geography teacher is having an exhibition of his microbiology themed rugs.

A cloud hit the ground this morning in southern Finland
Clouds have been hanging low this morning touching the ground in some places. This causes fog. At least the journalist interviewed a proper meteorologist who gave this wonderful quote: "Well fog is by definition cloud that reaches ground since cloud always consists of fog, it's one of those philosophical things."

Also apparently having some horses escape for a while was interesting enough for a short story (which it is, being something positive and local) but still lacked something:

Seven horses escaped to the ice of the Gulf of Finland - not connected to the meat scandal
Basically some horses escaped to the sea ice apparently enjoying themselves a lot and returned to the farm on their own. And this is in no way connected to the horse meat scandal.

I just came across this one:

"Unlikely Assault Weapons Ban Gets Senate Airing"

I literally cannot tell if the ban is getting an airing or not.

HandsomeRob wrote:I just came across this one:

"Unlikely Assault Weapons Ban Gets Senate Airing"

I literally cannot tell if the ban is getting an airing or not.

"Gets" is a big clue, because Headlinese tends to jettison all the verbs it can. For the no-airing meaning, the most typical way to express it is "Assault Weapons Ban Senate Airing Unlikely" because it gets rid of the verb. Whereas present-tensed verbs are strongly associated with a simple clause structure where everything before it is meant to be the subject NP, such as in "Jong-Un Tests Bomb" or "Jersey Shore Script Writer Claims Innocence in Terror Attack". And overall, Headlinese shows a preference for simpler clause structures at the expense of more complex noun phrases. Complex clause structures like "[It is] Unlikely [that the] Assault Weapons Ban Gets [a] Senate Hearing" are possible but atypical. So, without looking it up, I would assume that the ban is to get an airing.

Radius Solis wrote:

HandsomeRob wrote:I just came across this one:

"Unlikely Assault Weapons Ban Gets Senate Airing"

I literally cannot tell if the ban is getting an airing or not.

"Gets" is a big clue, because Headlinese tends to jettison all the verbs it can. For the no-airing meaning, the most typical way to express it is "Assault Weapons Ban Senate Airing Unlikely" because it gets rid of the verb. Whereas present-tensed verbs are strongly associated with a simple clause structure where everything before it is meant to be the subject NP, such as in "Jong-Un Tests Bomb" or "Jersey Shore Script Writer Claims Innocence in Terror Attack". And overall, Headlinese shows a preference for simpler clause structures at the expense of more complex noun phrases. Complex clause structures like "[It is] Unlikely [that the] Assault Weapons Ban Gets [a] Senate Hearing" are possible but atypical. So, without looking it up, I would assume that the ban is to get an airing.

I would assume the contrary, on the basis that "Unlikely Assault Weapons Ban" seems quite a strange noun phrase to use, particularly if you're saying that it's getting one stage closer to being enacted.

I didn't at first notice either interpretation, however - I was too distracted by the thought of the Senate debating a ban on unlikely assault weapons. Seems the sort of thing the US government would do - remain agnostic on handguns, but firmly, FIRMLY, crack down on morningstars, miniguns, and microfilm garottes.

Alternatively, it may be that two related things are happening: the Unlikely are assaulting some weapons, while the senate discuss banning something (presumably assaulting weaponry, though maybe they're siding with the Unlikely and banning the weapons?).

Then again, it's possible that, following an unlikely assault, the senate are debating a weapons ban. Or there haven't been any unlikely assaults yet, but the senate is considering banning the sort of weapons that might be used for unlikely assaults...

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsan ... foodprint/

Took me a couple tries to parse "Ground Flying Food".

linguoboy wrote:http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsan ... foodprint/

Took me a couple tries to parse "Ground Flying Food".

Yes, without looking at the context I'd never guessed what it means.

hwhatting wrote:

linguoboy wrote:http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsan ... foodprint/

Took me a couple tries to parse "Ground Flying Food".

Yes, without looking at the context I'd never guessed what it means.

Before I actually followed the link I was imagining ground-up food launched into mid-air, and even after following it it required a few moments of thought to parse...

Travis B. wrote:

hwhatting wrote:

linguoboy wrote:http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsan ... foodprint/

Took me a couple tries to parse "Ground Flying Food".

Yes, without looking at the context I'd never guessed what it means.

Before I actually followed the link I was imagining ground-up food launched into mid-air, and even after following it it required a few moments of thought to parse...

Or pigeon mince.

HandsomeRob wrote:"Unlikely Assault Weapons Ban Gets Senate Airing"

I'm understanding this that assault weapong might be banned, though it is unlikely, and they are gonna air it at the senate anyway.

This one is entirely clear. Nonetheless, I was momentarily confused by failing to note the punctuation:

Mr Curtis thanked his family, friends, Jesus, Mr Wicker and Mr Obama.

Drop a comma (and technically upgrade another to a dash or a colon, but often this isn't necessary these days) and that's one heck of a set of family friends.