Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

[Vijay]

with a clear pause at the end in speech.

This is not necessarily true for us native speakers of English. It's pretty normal to say something like that without a pause. Of course, for that matter, you could get rid of commas altogether and not even have one before the "but," because there isn't necessarily a pause before that, either. That being said, you certainly can have pauses in all three places, and my understanding is that prescriptivists would require all three commas in there.

[jal]

This is not necessarily true for us native speakers of English. It's pretty normal to say something like that without a pause.

In quick speech, all pauses can fly out of the window. But I bet you have a down glide on "hook up", so at least it's clear where the phrase ends.


JAL

[Vijay]

It's not even quick speech, really, just normal speech. I'm not sure there has to be a downglide there, either, but I think I would actually expect a pitch rise at that point.

[jal]

It's not even quick speech, really, just normal speech. I'm not sure there has to be a downglide there, either, but I think I would actually expect a pitch rise at that point.

Regardless, in speech the intonation pattern makes clear what's going on. In writing, not so.


JAL

[Vijay]

Yes, agreed.

[jmcd]

Cafe Society? Not if you can be seen eating and drinking from a living room window say city planners I initially read the headline as referring to people eating and drinking in their living rooms.

[jal]

Cafe Society? Not if you can be seen eating and drinking from a living room window say city planners I initially read the headline as referring to people eating and drinking in their living rooms.

Can "from a living room" ever mean "in a living room" or "out of a living room" or the like?


JAL

[Vijay]

Can "from a living room" ever mean "in a living room" or "out of a living room" or the like?

Sure. "I looked (out) onto the street from a living room window."

[jal]

Can "from a living room" ever mean "in a living room" or "out of a living room" or the like?

Sure. "I looked (out) onto the street from a living room window."

Yeah, ok, specifically combined with "look". But in "Not if you can be seen eating and drinking from a living room window say city planners", there's no "look". "Be seen [doing X] from Y" is not gardenpathy at all to me, and I can't parse it in such a way that it "[refers] to people eating and drinking in their living rooms". I could imagine someone could garble the sentence up, parsing "eating and drinking from a living room" as *in* a living room b/o the "seen" triggers a "from" etc., but it's still a wrong semantic attribution, not a garden path. There's nothing confusing about the sentence in and of itself.


JAL

[Vijay]

Can "from a living room" ever mean "in a living room" or "out of a living room" or the like?

Sure. "I looked (out) onto the street from a living room window."

Yeah, ok, specifically combined with "look". But in "Not if you can be seen eating and drinking from a living room window say city planners", there's no "look".

How much of a difference do you see between "look" and "be seen"? I could just as well say e.g. "The culprit was seen from a living room window to be carrying a knife."

"Be seen [doing X] from Y" is not gardenpathy at all to me, and I can't parse it in such a way that it "[refers] to people eating and drinking in their living rooms".

I can and did when I saw that sentence. That was the first interpretation that occurred to me.

[jal]

Since I'm not a native speaker, I'll throw in the towel, but I still think y'all wrong :).


JAL

[linguoboy]

Jal's sentence didn't gave me any trouble, but this one did:

In local elections
the year after it won an outright majority
and left the reformists with none.

(Line breaks as in the original, since I think they contributed to my difficulties.)

The next sentence has an identical structure, but they use a comma there, which makes me suspect their stylebook has a rule defining some arbitrary minimum of words before they allow a comma rather than leaving it to the writer's judgment.

[jal]

In local elections
the year after it won an outright majority
and left the reformists with none.

Yeah, that's difficult to parse. I take it that "it" is the subject here, doing the winning? So it parses "In local elections [that were held] the year after, it [some political party?] won an outright majority (...)"?


JAL

[Vijay]

That almost looks like a haiku!

Local elections
Year after it won outright
Left reformists none.

No idea what even the original means though.

[linguoboy]

Incompetent sentence from an article on the anti-Trump rally in Chicago:

Wearing white t-shirts that read "Say No to Hate" and "Muslims United Against Trump," security pulled the three young men out of line in front of at about 3 p.m.

Don't they teach kids about misplaced modifiers any more?

[Salmoneus]

Incompetent sentence from an article on the anti-Trump rally in Chicago:

Wearing white t-shirts that read "Say No to Hate" and "Muslims United Against Trump," security pulled the three young men out of line in front of at about 3 p.m.

Don't they teach kids about misplaced modifiers any more?

Lost that battle long ago...

[jal]

FCC CHAIRMAN MOCKS INDUSTRY
CLAIMS THAT CUSTOMERS DON’T
NEED FASTER INTERNET

I first read it with a comma after "industry", which kinda changes the meaning...


JAL

[Vijay]

Bahahah! So did I! I didn't realize what it meant until I read you explaining how you read it.

[linguoboy]

Do Republicans really think Donald Trump would make a good Supreme Court choice?

[jmcd]

I think we're all dreading Judge Trump. For once, the Supreme Court bankruptcy decisions will be about its own bankruptcy.

[opipik]

What is "Supreme Court"?

[linguoboy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_C ... ted_States

[linguoboy]

My brother left this gnomic comment on my Facebook: "Fish lives forever."

[jal]

Well, he probably doesn't, but unless the intended parsing is not that Derek William Dick's legacy will stay with us even when he's physically deceased, I don't see any parsing problems.


JAL

[linguoboy]

Well, he probably doesn't, but unless the intended parsing is not that Derek William Dick's legacy will stay with us even when he's physically deceased, I don't see any parsing problems.

Actually, he was referring to Abe Vigoda's character on the TV series Barney Miller.

But I'm so influenced by seeing variations of the formula #BlackLivesMatter on Facebook that I read it as an exhortation to save the oceans.