Vaccination misnegation
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From this blog post:
ICU beds are filled to capacity with unvaccinated COVID patients who are not vaccinated because they didn’t have access to immunization. They chose to be unvaccinated.
A.L., who sent in the link, observes that "this seems like a particularly striking example, because the misnegated phrase ('not vaccinated because they didn’t have access to immunization' instead of 'not unvaccinated because they didn’t have access to immunization') is the focus of an explicit contrast with one that's appropriately negated."
As often in cases where the problem is extra or missing characters, rather than a whole-word substitution, it's hard to tell whether this is a slip of the fingers or a slip of the brain. Or maybe a bit of both.
The obligatory screenshot:
Ed M said,
September 2, 2021 @ 9:16 am
It would be better, perhaps, if the blogger wrote:
"filled to capacity with COVID patients who chose to be unvaccinated."
"Access to immunization" is irrelevant here.
Jerry Friedman said,
September 2, 2021 @ 11:26 am
I suspect that part of what led the author is that in fact they are not vaccinated. If they'd written "…unvaccinated Covid patients who are not unvaccinated because…" there would have been a short but strange garden path. Starting the sentence over might have been a good idea.
Jerry Friedman said,
September 2, 2021 @ 11:27 am
*led the author astray
I also seem to have a "they" problem. Maybe I should start over.