Inches

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The headline above this page at TheHill.com says Warren inches away from Obama. And Bob Ayers, who pointed it out to me, was surprised that anyone would judge Elizabeth Warren to be that close to Obama on the issues, since they disagree quite a bit. I agree with Bob: I also read the sentence that way (the wrong way) at first. But if you read the text you soon see that they must have meant inches as a 3rd-person-singular verb, not a plural noun, and that reverses the key entailment. She isn't a mere few inches away from the president; she is edging away from him.

What is slightly surprising is that the reading with the noun is so readily grasped despite having an ellipsis and an implicit "only" (it means "Warren is inches away from Obama (and only that, not more)." The meaning that Ayers and I initially failed to spot is a straightforward simple clause (Subject + Verb + Locative preposition phrase) with nothing omitted or implied. You might have thought it would have been the easier one to pick up.



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