Apologies, again

I apologize, I had not realized what idiocy Tipsy had been putting up on our blog, or I would have stopped her. As it stands, I have been pulled from my fascinating reading about the artifacts of Tutankhamen's tomb that Deirdre and Miss Adrien have provided for me so that I might address this twaddle. Tipsy should have mentioned that Miss Caitlin was obliged to point out the grammar errors and ambiguities for her grammar class.

In the case of "Services for man who refused to hate Thursday in Atlanta," the mistake is that commonly, native speakers expect "hate" to have an object. "Thursday" and the prepositional phrase "in Atlanta" are actually being used adverbially to describe when the services are, and "to hate" is being used intransitively, but because of the expectation for an object, the noun phrase "Thursdays in Atlanta" appears to be filling that role.

"British Left Waffles on Falklands" This instance is purely lexical in ambiguity. The world "left" can be the past tense of the verb "to leave," or it can be a noun that means "liberal." Likewise, "waffles" might be the present tense for "to waffle," which means to be indecisive, or it can be a breakfast food that is tasty with fruit or ice cream. What the reader views to be the meaning of the sentence depends on which word the reader takes to be the verb.

"Prison warden says inmates may have 3 guns" The confusion of this sentence derives from the epistemic versus the deontic uses of the modal "may." "Might" causes similar problems, but "may" is more common in headlines as it is shorter. The epistemic meaning expresses possibility - the inmates could possible have gotten a hold of three guns. The deontic meaning is the one Tipsy latched on to - that an inmate is allowed to have three guns.

"Babies are What the Mother Eats" I must reluctantly agree with Tipsy on this one. The author seems to have been trying to play with the old adage "You are what you eat," but what results is pretty twisted.

"Sisters Reunited After 18 Years in Checkout Line at Supermarket" The confusion here (which should not be confusing, as the real meaning is transparent - no one spends 18 years in a checkout lane) is what are the prepositional phrases "in Checkout Line" and "at Supermarket" are a part of. The correct interpretation is that those to phrases, as well as "After 18 Years" are part of the verb phrase with "Reunited" at its head. The incorrect interpretation comes from making the prepositional phrases "in Checkout Line" and "at Supermarket" subordinate to "18 Years," creating a rediculously long noun phrase to be the object of the preposition "after."

"Ancestors of Apes, Humans May Have Originated in Asia" This is caused superficially by the deletion of the word "and" and instead inserting a comma between "Apes" and "Humans." This makes "Ancestors of Apes" seem like an appositive for humans. But even with the reinsertion of "and," there is still a confusion. (Ancestors of Apes) and (humans) is one interpretation, while Ancestors of (Apes and Humans), presumably the correct interpretation, is not readily obvious. The best solution is to insert "both" as well, to read, "Ancestors of Both Apes and Humans May Have Originated in Asia"

"Large Church Plans Collapse" This is the same error as the Falklands example - how you interpret "plans" and "collapse" as nouns or verbs. I refuse to go into it again.

"Crowds Rushing to See Pope Trample 6 to Death" I first want to point out that creating amusement at the expense of pious old men is a deplorable past time. The crux of the matter here is where the end of the prepositional phrase is. The answer is that it ends with "Pope" and "Trample" is the present tense main verb for the sentence. The incorrect answer is that "Trample 6 to Death" is a modified infinitive phrase with the subject "Pope," and that whole phrase is serving as the object of the preposition. Rushing, however, is not in the position to be the verb of the sentence; anyone should be able to see that it is introducing the participial phrase, "Rushing to See Pope."

I hope Tipsy does not waste anyone's time with something this silly again. I am going back to my research about Tutankhamen's tomb.