zompist bboard

I've had a couple of complaints that the old topic was pruned, so I'm starting its replacement here.

This first one should be perfectly comprehensible to the Brits, but it had me genuinely puzzled for a bit:

Woman's boobs weigh nearly 4st

They could have simply written four stone there - not that we North Americans would have gotten how much weight that is.

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Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

IME, most Americans don't even realise that that is a measure of weight. So even that would read like surrealism.

Of course, my initial reaction was, "Well what weighed 2st and 3st?"

As was mine.

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Dibotahamdn duthma jallni agaynni ra hgitn lakrhmi.
Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

Even more puzzlingly, how can you walk around every day with an extra 25 and a half kilos on your chest?

I should've known.

I create a thread for confusing headlines in Ephemera, people post confusing headlines to it.
I create a thread for confusing headlines in NotA, it turns into an unedifying discussions of Americans' perception of the word "stone".

On to an actual garden-path headline: ICC requests Gaddafi arrest warrant. Seriously, all I had to do was visit Google News with the intention of finding a garden-path headline so as to add something topical to this thread, and there it was, right in front of me.

Not that it's necessarily a very confusing headline, but it is most certainly a garden path: only when you get to warrant do you discover that the intended structure can't have been "ICC requests [that] Gaddafi arrest [someone]".


Another fun one that appears to have been corrected in the interval while I wrote this post:
Queen makes historic Ireland trip. This certainly gives the impression of the Queen sticking out her foot in front of poor historic Ireland as it walks by...

The old thread died because it was boring, so now it's being reposted in NotA just so it'll linger for months?

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No, it's being reposted to annoy you.

Good to see it's working.

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Common Zein Scratchpad & other Stuffs! OMG AN ACTUAL CONPOST WTFBBQ

Formerly known as Drydic.

Schwarzenegger had child with staffer, report says

So there's a genetic or infant disease called "staffer" now?

Bill O'Reilly and Jon Stewart Debate Common Controversy

So is the debate between O'Reilly and Stewart a common controversy, or is the thing they were debating a common controversy?

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MI DRALAS, KHARULE MEVO STANI?!

Or were they debating a Common controversy, as in, "What fool thing has Common gone and said now?"

I was like, OMG, what has Warrant done now!?

Language Log has an all-time classic today: "Sack rape row Clarke - Miliband".

And it's not a headline, but I caused a parsing problem for my friend Lee when buying a copy of his book on the Mississippi for a friend. I told him to inscribe it to "Ken, who like the river never sleeps" and because I didn't pause sufficiently after "who", he could make neither head nor tails of it even after three repeats.

I found this article via cracked.com: "Science fingers natural bullies"

Oh dear. That was too much information about the intimate relations between science and natural bullies!

Sqad helps dog bites victim.

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If I stop posting out of the blue it probably is because my computer and the board won't cooperate and let me log in.!

Link, because that isn't even sensical.

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Common Zein Scratchpad & other Stuffs! OMG AN ACTUAL CONPOST WTFBBQ

Formerly known as Drydic.

a victim of dog bites?

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p_>-ts_>k_>-k_>k_>-pSSSSS

Apparently, it's "Squad helps dog bite victim". Don't know if it's actually attested though.

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Constructed Voices - Another conlanging/conworlding blog.
Latest post: Joyful Birth of the Oiled One

I've read a bit of the article but I still have no idea how the hell the headline is supposed to be parsed. "Science: Fingers Natural Bullies"...? (Not to mention that I appear to have female-style finger length ratios, which I guess is not all that surprising.)

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High Eolic (PDF)

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/finger#Verb (please avert your eyes from definition #3, it is quite shocking)

Bin Laden raid was humiliating to Pakistanis, Gates, Mullen say

though the actual article uses an "and"

Policeman suspended over lap-dance

That policeman really needs to learn the appropriate uses for a real uniform and a novelty uniform.

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Falgwian and Falgwia!!

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

"Weiner resignation calls louden, wife's pregnant"