Teen attacked by kebab van
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According to Laura Shack, "Cirencester teenager breaks jaw in alleged attack by kebab van", Wilts and Gloustershire Standard, 9/4/2012:
The 19-year-old man told police officers he was attacked by the van in Tetbury Road, Cirencester, at around 4am on Sunday, August 26.
The teenager, who suffered a broken jaw, was found to be in an intoxicated state by police officers and he was taken by ambulance to Great Western Hospital in Swindon.
The first sentence of the article explains things a bit differently:
A CIRENCESTER teenager suffered a broken jaw after he was reportedly assaulted by an unknown attacker near to a kebab van.
Obligatory screenshot:
I myself was once attacked by the back door of a bar.
[Tip of the hat to electrichalibut.co.uk]
Dan Hemmens said,
September 5, 2012 @ 1:51 pm
Is this one of the few situations where a typical headlinese structure like: "teen in kebab van jaw break attack" would actually be clearer than the more natural headline they went with?
davep said,
September 5, 2012 @ 1:57 pm
What does the kebab van have to do with it? (Seems like irrelevant detail, especially for a headline.)
Alexis said,
September 5, 2012 @ 2:15 pm
@davep, maybe the journalists just like the sound of "kebab van." I know I do.
Bobbie said,
September 5, 2012 @ 2:23 pm
I doubt that he broke his own jaw.
Victor Mair said,
September 5, 2012 @ 2:48 pm
Note that Bobbie's use of "doubt" is quite different from that of typical American usage. Most speakers of American English that I know would say "suspect" instead.
Terry Collmann said,
September 5, 2012 @ 2:51 pm
It may or may not be relevant here that it's a truth universally acknowledged in the UK that nobody goes anywhere near a kebab van, let alone purchases and consumes the comestibles on sale from such a vehicle, unless in an advanced state of late-night intoxication.
On the other hand "attacked by the van" meaning "attacked in the immediate vicinity of the van" – as in "standing by the van" meaning "standing in the immediate vicinity of the van" – would be perfectly colloquial English to me.
Erik R. said,
September 5, 2012 @ 2:53 pm
The van proximity is only included to scare the reader. As in, "OMG, I've been near a kebab van! I could also be in danger of such an attack!" If you can relate to the victim, you're more likely to read the article.
Alex said,
September 5, 2012 @ 4:00 pm
"Near to" a kebab van? Is this a Britishism? If so, it must be fairly colloquial because I consume lots of British TV and books, and I've never noticed it before. "Near a kebab van," yes. "Close to a kebab van," yes. Even "near by a kebab van." But I would never say "near to."
Now that I think about it, I have heard Brits say "closer to" when I would have said "close up" ("Closer to, you can see the painting is composed of tiny dots.") Ah, prepositions. They seem so simple until you try to figure out why you ride on a bus instead of in one.
Simon Wright said,
September 5, 2012 @ 4:02 pm
I suspect that Bobbie believed that "teenager breaks jaw" was not to be taken to mean that the teenager broke his own jaw. "Doubt" meaning "suspect" is archaic, according to Merriam-Webster online and the OED, and I've never heard it in English English; though I have a feeling it might be Scottish.
Andy Averill said,
September 5, 2012 @ 4:55 pm
We'll understand it better by and by.
Peter Taylor said,
September 5, 2012 @ 5:07 pm
@Victor Mair, does "suspect" in en-us mean "consider unlikely"? If not then I am baffled by your comment.
@Alex, comparing BNC and COCA suggests that en-us is even more skewed in favouring "near to" over "near by" than en-gb, but this is far from conclusive because not all instances of "near to" have the desired geographic sense. But personally I find "near by a kebab van" a bit off, and "near to a kebab van" perfectly unremarkable.
Ted said,
September 5, 2012 @ 5:29 pm
In US usage, you'd simply say "near a kebab van" (or rather, in New York at least, "near a halal food cart," since that's the local analogue — although in fact "near a halal food cart" describes most of Midtown and therefore does not convey any useful information. But I digress.)
The pont is that A is near B — not near to B nor near by B. This is true so long as the referemce point is specified in the sentence. If it were already clear that you were using the kebab van as your reference point, you could say simply that the teen was nearby. But if you need to say that he's near the kebab van, the by is superfluous.
The only exception to this rule, so far as I know, is that Alice doesn't live in the restaurant; she lives in the church nearby the restaurant.
J Lee said,
September 5, 2012 @ 5:40 pm
more like codswallop news
Ethan said,
September 5, 2012 @ 6:36 pm
@Ted: You have neglected comparatives. Alice lives near the restaurant, but Bob lives nearer to the restaurant than Alice.
Rod Johnson said,
September 5, 2012 @ 6:46 pm
@Ethan. Or nearer the restaurant. Not? It's OK in my dialect. (I can also say Alice lives near the restaurant.)
@Ted: you're making a semantic argument about something that is at least in part a syntactic issue. If near in the UK doesn't take an NP complement then it might need a preposition to indicate the reference point. (I have no idea whether this is actually the case or not, just saying these things aren't completely reducible to semantics–l'arbitraire du signe and all that.)
Mr Punch said,
September 5, 2012 @ 7:13 pm
What strikes me is that since the kebab van is presumably mobile, its mention does not locate the attack, and is indeed irrelevant unless the nearness to the van played a role in the assault – in which case "kebab van attack" would be better.
Chris Waugh said,
September 5, 2012 @ 7:14 pm
My initial reaction was that in a state of severe intoxication the teenager managed to stumble or fall into the side of the kebab van with sufficient force to break his jaw, then, when the cops found him drunk and injured and inquired as to how he came to be this way, he told them "It was the kebab van wot did it!". "Attacked by kebab van" as passive form of "Kebab van attacked teenager".
Brett said,
September 5, 2012 @ 7:30 pm
According to Wikipedia, the church that Alice lived in was actually about six miles from the restaurant.
L said,
September 5, 2012 @ 7:55 pm
"Police would like to hear from any witnesses who may have seen the alleged assault or incidents leading up to it."
…and can explain to them exactly what happened, since neither the intoxicated teenager nor the headline writer was of much help.
Chris C. said,
September 5, 2012 @ 8:33 pm
Dear God, won't someone please think of the shawarma?
Matt said,
September 5, 2012 @ 9:19 pm
Yet another headline tragedy directly attributable to the inadequate case system we Indo-European speakers are saddled with. This sort of thing wouldn't happen if we had an apudessive case, or even a loosely applied adessive one. When are we going to get serious about communication and adopt Estonian as our lingua franca?
John Burgess said,
September 5, 2012 @ 10:19 pm
Matt: Never or when I'm elected god. Whichever comes first.
Ted said,
September 6, 2012 @ 12:03 am
@Brett: That's within poetic license range, don't you think?
@Rod: No, I'm making a syntactic argument. My point is that in AmE, or at least in the dialect I speak, "nearby" doesn't take a complement and therefore can be used only when the reference point is clear from context. If you have to specify the reference point, you need to use "near," because it takes a complement, which generally must be a plain NP. Both of the prepositions suggested as appropriate or at least unremarkable in BrE ("by" and "to") are at best unnecessary in my dialect and, although certainly comprehensible, would most likely sound unidiomatic if not flat wrong following "near."
Sarah Glover said,
September 6, 2012 @ 1:41 am
Nottingham, England – for me, 'near' and 'near to' both sound fine and I think are completely interchangeable.
Chris said,
September 6, 2012 @ 2:31 am
OED gives the first meaning of by as "At the side or edge of; in the vicinity of; near, close to, beside." It quotes Saintsbury (1881) writing that Dryden is interred in Westminster Abbey "in Poets' Corner, where he has been buried by Chaucer and Cowley", a turn of phrase that sounds just as incongruous as an attack by a kebeb van. But evidently this traditional usage is still alive in Wilts and Gloucestershire
F said,
September 6, 2012 @ 3:06 am
Mr Punch: "What strikes me is that since the kebab van is presumably mobile, its mention does not locate the attack,"
It may be technically mobile, but it almost certainly occupies the same pitch night after night, and is quite likely to be the only one in the vicinity. So both the van and its location will be readily identifiable, at least to the locals.
CamdenX said,
September 6, 2012 @ 4:20 am
On the BBC website right now: "Girl found alive in France murders car". It does take quite a lot of effort not to interpret that as meaning that the girl retaliated by killing the car that nearly did for her.
[(myl) Indeed — screen shot here.]
dporpentine said,
September 6, 2012 @ 4:42 am
This just seems like an extension of the equally crazy, but entirely routine, descriptions of drivers using motor vehicles to kill and injure others that are nonetheless phrased as, say, "Van Jumps Curb, Kills Four."
The difference is that with motor vehicles this vision of a world in which these machines move independently of their operators is maintained throughout whole news articles.
A recent example: "A BMW smashed into a pole after getting into an accident with a slow-moving utility vehicle on McDonald Avenue in Brooklyn Tuesday afternoon, officials said." (From: here.)
GeorgeW said,
September 6, 2012 @ 5:22 am
This is just another example of the insidious passive. 'Kebab van attacks teen' would be better writing, but that's not all. It also eliminates one more word from the headline – win win.
Stan said,
September 6, 2012 @ 6:32 am
A theme is emerging. I'm reminded of a headline that did the rounds a couple of years ago: "Sound Transit train hits teenage girl, survives".
Brief analysis of the BBC's "Girl found alive in France murders car" now at Sentence first.
John Roth said,
September 6, 2012 @ 6:50 am
@GeorgeW
That was my analysis. For me, by governs the agent; the interpretation where it governs a location isn't natural. I can't think of an occasion I'd use it instead of near.
Rod Johnson said,
September 6, 2012 @ 7:35 am
Really? "There's an umbrella stand over by the door." "Go stand by your mom and let me take a picture." To me, near seems wrong there—it seems to imply a vague proximity where what is intended is adjacency. (And in expressions of metaphorical proximity—"Stand by your man"—I think near is right out, no?)
Bobbie said,
September 6, 2012 @ 8:52 am
"Note that Bobbie's use of "doubt" is quite different from that of typical American usage. Most speakers of American English that I know would say "suspect" instead." — Victor Mair
Not at all! I used "doubt" to mean that it was improbable that he broke his own jaw. I did NOT suspect/ surmise /conclude that he broke his own jaw at all!
Most Americans would say that they "doubted" he broke his own jaw, if most of the evidence pointed to an unknown assailant. We Americans would "suspect" that he broke his own jaw only if he was faking the attack and hurt himself on purpose.
GeorgeW said,
September 6, 2012 @ 9:33 am
I (SoAmE) use 'doubt' and 'suspect' like Bobbie (@8:52).
RP said,
September 6, 2012 @ 9:51 am
I'm not American, but I'd assumed Victor Mair was making a joke.
Nick said,
September 6, 2012 @ 11:08 am
We had in Toronto a play-by-play guy for Saturday night hockey games who liked to use "by" in OED's 16a sense. This professional communicator would regularly say, "… the puck is shot down the ice by Kaberle!" And Kaberle was never the agent — he was trying to stop the puck, but it was getting past him.
Kaberle and the play-caller are both in Montreal now. Woo-hoo!
Eric P Smith said,
September 6, 2012 @ 11:26 am
The issues on the use of ‘by’ meaning “near” are the same as those explored on the LL post Death by Balzac.
I avoid the construction “to doubt that (content clause)” because I am conscious of its ambiguity. In my childhood in Scotland I occasionally heard older speakers using it to mean “I am apprehensive that”, especially when there was a modal verb in the subordinate clause. For example, older speakers would say, “I doubt that he may go bankrupt”, meaning “I am apprehensive that he may go bankrupt”. In place of the more modern use meaning “I suspect that … not”, I would always say “I doubt whether”. For example I would say “I doubt whether he will come back” meaning “I suspect that he will not come back.”
This is my second attempt to place this post. I apologise if it appears twice. I have no doubt but that it will appear at least once :-)
Dan Lufkin said,
September 6, 2012 @ 11:41 am
"Van Jumps Curb, Kills Four" — is this not a straightforward instance of metonymy: the container for the thing contained?
Bloix said,
September 6, 2012 @ 11:53 am
By blue Ontario's shore,
As I mused of these warlike days and of peace return'd, and the
dead that return no more,
A Phantom gigantic superb, with stern visage accosted me,
Chant me the poem, it said, that comes from the soul of America,
chant me the carol of victory,
And strike up the marches of Libertad, marches more powerful yet,
And sing me before you go the song of the throes of Democracy.
Andrew (not the same one) said,
September 6, 2012 @ 12:25 pm
'Doubt' for 'suspect' is indeed Scottish, as in 'I doubt I have slain the Red Comyn'.
As for 'breaks jaw', to me 'I have broken my jaw' means the same as 'my jaw is broken', and does not actually imply that I am responsible.
Rod Johnson said,
September 6, 2012 @ 1:31 pm
"Van Jumps Curb, Kills Four" — is this not a straightforward instance of metonymy: the container for the thing contained?
I would go further than that and claim that it is just plain old literal meaning. The whole "vision of a world in which these machines move independently of their operators" thing seems like a red herring. It was in fact that the van jumped the curb, and it was in fact the object that resulted in the victims' death. Now if it had been "murders four" I'd do a double take, but does anyone ever say that?
davep said,
September 6, 2012 @ 2:00 pm
Reply to: Stan (September 6, 2012 @ 6:32 am)::
"Brief analysis of the BBC's "Girl found alive in France murders car" now at Sentence first."
"Girl found alive in France-murders car".
Is there some sort of law precluding the use of hyphens in headlines?
davep said,
September 6, 2012 @ 2:06 pm
In the US (at least), it's (usually) "attacked by ". "Van" would be surprising. Using "attacked near " avoids the surprise (and confusion).
davep said,
September 6, 2012 @ 2:07 pm
Err.
In the US (at least), it's (usually) "attacked by [attacker]". "Van" would be surprising. Using "attacked near [object]" avoids the surprise (and confusion).
Andrew (not the same one) said,
September 6, 2012 @ 2:17 pm
Rod Johnson: I think there may be a deep division here in the way people use words. For me, just as 'I have broken my jaw' doesn't imply that I was responsible, so 'jump' and 'kill' do not connote responsibility; but for many people it seems they do.
Rod Johnson said,
September 6, 2012 @ 3:12 pm
Kind of a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" thing? :)
I'd be interested in hearing if people really feel "jump" or "kill" feel volitional. For me, sentences like "unemployment jumped to 15% this month" or "malaria kills millions of people every year" don't suggest that unemployment and malaria are personified somehow. Are there people that do get that feeling? Or to put it another way, are there people who feel "kill" and "murder" are somewhat synonymous?
Alex said,
September 6, 2012 @ 3:31 pm
About "doubt:" maybe this ambiguity between the meaning "to suspect something is not true" and the meaning "to fear something is true" is the reason someone came up with "misdoubt." As in "I misdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him." (Moby Dick). Although why "misdoubt" is usually reflexive, I have no idea.
Maybe we could have a LL post on "doubt?"
Eric P Smith said,
September 6, 2012 @ 7:54 pm
@Andrew (not the same one): Thanks for “I doubt I have slain the Red Comyn”. I was unaware of it, and it is a splendid example.
Brett said,
September 6, 2012 @ 9:00 pm
@Rod Johnson, and others: I too was puzzled by the notion that there should be anything wrong with a van jumping a curve and killing a group of people. To me, "kill" has no implications of any intent or capacity for independent action. "Jump" is a little different. I wouldn't bat an eyelid at the notion of unemployment jumping, but it feels very slightly metaphorical.
pj said,
September 7, 2012 @ 6:14 am
@ davep
I think Terry Collmann's comment is the answer to this, although he disclaims it as perhaps irrelevant: culturally, 'by kebab van' is conveniently and concisely evocative of 'late at night, in a town centre, while drunk'. So it actually suggests a lot more information (which the article then confirms) than it seems at face value to give.
Andrew (not the same one) said,
September 7, 2012 @ 8:33 am
Eric P Smith: Thank you!
Rod Johnson: Actually, I would find 'guns kill people' a bit odd. Bullets kill people, certainly; but guns aren't so closely connected with the death, so if you said a gun killed someone, it would sound to me rather as if the gun was being held responsible.
davep said,
September 7, 2012 @ 10:50 am
@pj :
"I think Terry Collmann's comment is the answer to this, although he disclaims it as perhaps irrelevant: culturally, 'by kebab van' is conveniently and concisely evocative of 'late at night, in a town centre, while drunk'. So it actually suggests a lot more information (which the article then confirms) than it seems at face value to give."
Presumably, then, they should translate it for American audiences: "near a White Castle".
Dave Ferguson said,
September 7, 2012 @ 12:56 pm
Like Eric Smith, I too thank Andrew (not the same one) and offer in gratitude a fuller, if yet more tangential, passage, from Chamber's Edinburgh Journal, January 6, 1838:
…Bruce, forgetting the sacredness of the place * , gave his enemy a blow with his dagger. Coming out to his friends at the gate of the monastery, he said, agitatedly, "I doubt I have killed the Red Comyn;" when Roger Kirkpatrick exclaimed, "Doubtest thou? — I mak siccar! [I make sure] and, seizing his master's bleeding dagger, rushed in and dispatched the wounded man…
* (the Grey-Friars' monastery at Dumfries)
Richard Hanley said,
September 15, 2012 @ 1:24 pm
Given the proper interpretation of the headline, I propose we apply the same manner of interpretation to the quoted body of the story, namely:
"The teenager, who suffered a broken jaw, was found to be in an intoxicated state by police officers and he was taken by ambulance to Great Western Hospital in Swindon."
It seems that (1), when found, he was intoxicated and in the vicinity of police officers, and moreover (2) was taken in the vicinity of an ambulance, and thence to hospital…
Chad said,
March 6, 2014 @ 10:39 am
@davep
Agree with the hyphen use, but based on what I read of the article, it wouldn't be "France-murders car" but rather "France murders-car". Though either way it's a very silly noun grouping.