PP attachment of the week

February 9, 2018 @ 10:45 pm · Filed by under ambiguity, Humor, Syntax

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From the Washington Post:

Jan. 30, fine, but Jan. 31? Apology required.

February 9, 2018 @ 10:45 pm · Filed by under ambiguity, Humor, Syntax


14 Comments

  1. bobbie said,

    February 10, 2018 @ 12:38 am

    Thirty days hath September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31, except February which has 28 or 29.
    I don't see the problem.

  2. A said,

    February 10, 2018 @ 12:53 am

    @bobbie

    The standard reading is "(for having an affair …) (on Jan. 31)," but the sentence could also be read as "for (having an affair … on Jan. 31)".

  3. John Roth said,

    February 10, 2018 @ 1:01 am

    @bobbie

    The issue is whether the PP "on January 31" modifies "apologized" or "having an affair with the head of her security detail." The first possibility does not cause an issue, the second suggests that having an affair on that date, rather than some other date, is the issue, which is just strange. I expect that a lot of people would just reject the second interpretation without noticing it.

  4. rosie said,

    February 10, 2018 @ 2:32 am

    Actually, the parse John Roth mentioned second is the one that occurred to me first. I thought that the issue was one of a laughable inference from the fact that the date was stated. Only on second reading did I see that "on Jan 31" was attached to the wrong predicate.

  5. Rose Eneri said,

    February 10, 2018 @ 9:11 am

    Seems platonic to me since she had the affair only with his head.

  6. Andrew (not the same one) said,

    February 10, 2018 @ 4:23 pm

    Can something that happens only on one day really be called an affair?

  7. Gwen Katz said,

    February 10, 2018 @ 4:54 pm

    Seems platonic to me since she had the affair only with his head.

    You are showing a severe lack of imagination.

  8. Neal Goldfarb said,

    February 10, 2018 @ 5:17 pm

    "on January 31"

    Sounds more like a one-night stand than an affair.

  9. Viseguy said,

    February 10, 2018 @ 7:28 pm

    @Rose Eneri: Surely you jest!

  10. Andrew Usher said,

    February 10, 2018 @ 8:20 pm

    Is this the kind of thing that a male politician would be pressured to resign for? (I can't read the story, so you can't blame me for misinterpretation, but the headline does say 'affair' and we know what that means.)

    k_over_hbarc at yahoo.com

  11. Yerushalmi said,

    February 11, 2018 @ 7:52 am

    @Andrew Usher:

    Considering who got elected President… no, not anymore.

  12. mg said,

    February 11, 2018 @ 3:44 pm

    @Andrew Usher: In the #MeToo era? Yes, if it were found to be part of a pattern with any suggestion that the other participants felt pressured to comply.

  13. Andrew Usher said,

    February 12, 2018 @ 6:33 pm

    Interesting that I make a comment unrelated to Trump, and then it gets immediately jumped on by someone to bash him. It's something that I've noticed going back, I suppose, to Bill Clinton: there appears always to arise to group of people, getting larger with each presidency, that are practically foaming at the mouth with their desire to paint the current president as Evil. To address any specific allegations about him, I need only say that we knew all about him when we voted for him, and that most political people even on the Right didn't like him.

    The second response irrelevantly drags in the current sexual harassment witch-hunt, and insinuates that if the sexes were reversed there would have to be something more non-consensual about it – which could be dismissed as absurd if so many people didn't apparently believe it.

  14. Jenny Chu said,

    February 12, 2018 @ 10:57 pm

    @Rose Eneri – indeed, where was his body on January 31?!? :)

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