Confusing headlines and other trips down the garden path

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din
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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by din »

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
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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Daistallia »

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!

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by zompist »

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


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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by linguoboy »

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.

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by zompist »

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?"

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Torco »

Do spanish headlines qualify?

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

:D

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Thry »

xDDDD

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Salmoneus »

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...]
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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by linguoboy »

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."

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by linguoboy »

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

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Shrdlu »

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.
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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Shm Jay »

Bil-whatever, your comment makes no sense whatsoever.

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by clawgrip »

I think he means other popes died.

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Jashan »

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.
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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by gach »

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.

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by HandsomeRob »

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.

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Radius Solis »

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.

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Salmoneus »

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...
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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by linguoboy »

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

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

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by hwhatting »

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.

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Travis B. »

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...
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Amuhawr jalla vowa vta hlakrhi hdm duthmi xaja.
Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro. Irdro.

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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Salmoneus »

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.
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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Qwynegold »

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.
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Re: Confusing headlines, and other trips down the garden pat

Post by Salmoneus »

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.
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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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