Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

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Vijay
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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Vijay »

Hmm...it does strike me as a garden path. :P

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by jal »

Risla wrote:Hither Green burglar death flowers 'an insult'
Not a garden path, but I was pretty confused about it until I read the article.
Pretty garden pathy, imho. Is it the "burglar's death" that "flowers an insult"? Or the did the "burglar" send "death flowers" to insult someone? Or is it the insult the flowers themselves, the "burglar death flowers"?


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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by KathTheDragon »

It's flowers for the death of a burglar in Hither Green

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alynnidalar
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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by alynnidalar »

What an odd news story.
I generally forget to say, so if it's relevant and I don't mention it--I'm from Southern Michigan and speak Inland North American English. Yes, I have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; no, I don't have the cot-caught merger; and it is called pop.

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Axiem »

I keep reading the "Hither" as "Hitler", which certainly doesn't help my confusion...

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Salmoneus »

alynnidalar wrote:What an odd news story.
In what way? There have been similar stories from the US, haven't there? (eg Martin/Zimmerman?)

Essentially, the problem is that They are putting up large floral tributes in front of the house of someone who 'justifiably' killed one of Them. The killing is already controversial - one the one hand, many of Us were outraged that the guy was even questioned, because how could killing one of Them ever be wrong? (cf. our own Martin case*) - while on the other hand many of Them were outraged that They weren't being treated as equal human beings with things like a right to life.

But now They are putting up these 'tributes' directly facing the door of the killer, and it's widely seen as a form of intimidation and threat. The killer has 'been forced' to flee their home for fear of reprisals. And why should They be entitled to things like tributes? After all, as one person commented to an interviewer, obviously for a "Normal Person" tributes would be expected, but it was wrong to allow Them to be treated posthumously as though they were Normal People. so various of Us have been removing the tributes, or throwing them on the floor. On the other hand, They have said that given that a young father died violently, it's only reasonable that his friends and relatives and children might want to lay some flowers, and have been putting the tributes back.

It's worth noting however that unlike the usual US cases, "They" in this case aren't a racial, ethnic or religious minority in this case. They're just Them. [and I hasten to point out that i'm not one of Us myself. In this case, 'We' are Daily Mail readers, and 'They' are readers of, I don't know, The Star?]



*though the Martin case is different in important ways. In this case, the burglars forced a man into his kitchen, where he grabbed a knife, fought back and killed one of the burglars. In the Tony Martin case, Martin was lying in wait with an illegal firearm, shot at the burglars without warning, and then repeatedly shot them in the back as they tried to escape the house. [also, Martin was a BNP supporter and his victim was a Traveller, so the politics were way more fraught].
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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by alynnidalar »

What an odd response to my post.
I generally forget to say, so if it's relevant and I don't mention it--I'm from Southern Michigan and speak Inland North American English. Yes, I have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; no, I don't have the cot-caught merger; and it is called pop.

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by mèþru »

Henry Vincent was also a Traveller.
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!
kårroť

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Salmoneus »

alynnidalar wrote:What an odd response to my post.
In what way?

Seriously, be more constructive in your criticism.
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But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Vijay »

Oh, come on. People don't generally feel the need to honor a well-known deceased burglar with flowers (let alone vandalize the grave once it's decorated with flowers). This should not be that hard to understand.
Axiem wrote:I keep reading the "Hither" as "Hitler", which certainly doesn't help my confusion...
There are a few Indian movies, all from the late 90s, called Hitler. None of them have anything to do with Adolf Hitler.

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by alynnidalar »

Salmoneus wrote:
alynnidalar wrote:What an odd response to my post.
In what way?

Seriously, be more constructive in your criticism.
Very well, then, I'll elucidate:

You seem to have interpreted my remark as some sort of... I dunno exactly. Some sort of political or social statement? It was not. When I said "What an odd news story", what I meant is that I felt the news story and the situation described therein was, in fact, odd. Out of the ordinary. Unexpected.

I'm not at all sure why thinking the situation was odd--which it was, that's not a very common situation--led you to a big ol' rant about Them and Us and equality and I'm not even sure what else. That response was, much like the news story, odd and unexpected, and didn't make sense as a response to my post. (which, again, was merely to remark that the story was unusual)
I generally forget to say, so if it's relevant and I don't mention it--I'm from Southern Michigan and speak Inland North American English. Yes, I have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; no, I don't have the cot-caught merger; and it is called pop.

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by jal »

Nevertheless, I kinda liked that response, gave some insights into British weirdness :)


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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

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Vijay
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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Vijay »

Oh God :D

I mean DOG. :P

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Qwynegold »

jal wrote:
There's so much more where that came from :).


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Here's a YouTube video title that I had difficulty understanding:

Get better with money in one year
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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Vijay »

A sentence from the Wikipedia article on #MeToo:

Several groups of Christians, conservative women and radical feminists have argued that #MeToo demonstrates pornography causes women to be viewed as sexual objects and contributes to the prevalence of sexual harassment.

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KathTheDragon
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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by KathTheDragon »

What's garden pathy here?

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Salmoneus
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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Salmoneus »

Presumably it's a confusion caused by the non-standard grammar. I had no trouble, because there's no real altenative interpretation, but it did feel like gears grinding the wrong way for a couple of words there until things started working again. [because the grammar 'error' throws the parsing into doubt right when there's a word that's formally ambiguous in terms of POS]
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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Vijay »

Salmoneus wrote:Presumably it's a confusion caused by the non-standard grammar.
This. I was thrown off by "demonstrates pornography causes." I'm not sure I've ever seen 'that' being omitted in a Wikipedia article in any other context.

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alynnidalar
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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by alynnidalar »

Oh, I assumed it was a missing comma:

"...#MeToo demonstrates pornography, causes women to be viewed as sexual objects, and contributes to the prevalence of sexual harassment."

But upon reflection that doesn't make a lot of sense, and "demonstrates that pornography causes..." is a lot more sensible.

Earlier in the sentence, the lack of the Oxford comma also makes it slightly ambiguous whether it's talking about Christians and conservative women and radical feminists, or Christians who are either conservative women or radical feminists. I initially read it as "Several groups of Christians, [those groups being] conservative women and radical feminists, have argued..." before realizing that presumably was not the intended reading given the lack of a second comma.
I generally forget to say, so if it's relevant and I don't mention it--I'm from Southern Michigan and speak Inland North American English. Yes, I have the Northern Cities Vowel Shift; no, I don't have the cot-caught merger; and it is called pop.

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Vijay »

alynnidalar wrote:Oh, I assumed it was a missing comma:

"...#MeToo demonstrates pornography, causes women to be viewed as sexual objects, and contributes to the prevalence of sexual harassment."

But upon reflection that doesn't make a lot of sense, and "demonstrates that pornography causes..." is a lot more sensible.
That was a problem I had, too.

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finlay
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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by finlay »

ya beat me!

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Vijay »

I just noticed that one YouTube video I have bookmarked is called:

San Bushmen, Kalahari Desert Botswana Rock the Horse Song 2015

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by Salmoneus »

Review: The Tina Turner Musical

The musical is in fact called 'The Tina Turner Musical' (I think?), and this is a review of it. Rather than the musical being called "Review" with "The Tina Turner Musical" being a subtitle, which I originally assumed.
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But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
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I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

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Re: Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

Post by linguoboy »

From The Economist print edition: "The biggest sensation was...that one of his three legal clients was Sean Hannity."

I first took this as a subtle implication that Cohen might have other, illegal clients.

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