Hanging a trans flag from El Capitan
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François Lang says:
This WSJ headline garden-pathed me; I got the correct parse only on the third try!
Federal Worker Fired After Hanging Trans Flag at Yosemite Sues Government
Former Park Service employee claims free speech violations after organizing climbers for display at ‘El Cap’
By Allison Pohle, WSJ (2/23/26)
François Lang has a knack for spotting such strained locutions:
"A garden-path headline from the Washington Post" (11/26/25)
"Old, older, oldest" (2/23/26) — and there are others
Selected readings
"Garden paths galore" (1/22/24) — with long list of references
"Modals, idiolects, garden-path sentences, and English translations of a ninth-century Chinese poem" (2/22/24) — plus more than a dozen examples
Stephen Bowden said,
March 1, 2026 @ 7:26 am
Yosemite Sue is perhaps Yosemite Sam’s sister?
Philip Taylor said,
March 1, 2026 @ 9:19 am
To be perfectly honest, I can't see how to mis-parse it. The only meaning that comes to my mind (which I postulate is the correct one) is "[A] Federal Worker [who was] Fired After Hanging [a] Trans[gender] Flag at Yosemite [National Park] [subsequently] Sues [the U.S.] Government". What other interpretations are possible ?
Robert Coren said,
March 1, 2026 @ 9:56 am
@Philip: Well, when I started reading the headline I thought it was saying "[A] Federal worker [has been] fired", so I guess that's the "garden-path" aspect, but after reading the rest of it the actual meaning became pretty clear.
Philip Taylor said,
March 1, 2026 @ 11:00 am
OK, yes, I can now see that garden path possibility, but once I hit "sues" it forces my brain back into the (presumably) correct interpretation.
Xtifr said,
March 1, 2026 @ 2:54 pm
I also struggled to find misinterpretations. But I did find one that you can get by placing a period at the first line break: "Federal worker fired after hanging. Trans flag at Yosemite sues government." Which would certainly be an interesting story, especially if those two facts were somehow related! :)
dainichi said,
March 1, 2026 @ 7:28 pm
The only garden path I can find is "Fired After Hanging Trans Flag at Yosemite" which might have looked more like a predicate ("is/was"), but when hitting "sues" turns out to be a modifier ("who was"). Still, it doesn't really change the meaning, so the confusion seems minimal. In fact, you can just insert an "and" or a comma and happily stay on your current path. "Federal Worker [is] Fired After Hanging Trans Flag at Yosemite [and] Sues Government".
Rick Rubenstein said,
March 2, 2026 @ 1:35 am
I think people are misunderstanding what a "garden path sentence" (or headline) actually is. What @Philip Taylor describes is exactly the garden path phenomenon: you're reading and building up a model of how the sentence works, assuming "Federal Worker" is the subject and "Fired" is the main verb, and then you hit a word (here "Sues") that doesn't make sense, and are forced to back up and rebuild your mental parse tree. This reinterpretation is usually fast, but the cognitive delay is measurable (and measured).
One of the classic examples, "The horse raced past the barn fell", has almost the exact same overall structure as this headline.
Peter Grubtal said,
March 2, 2026 @ 3:47 am
dainichi, Rick Rubenstein
Yes, in both cases, it's the comma (or better semicolon) that I miss. Headline writers don't like them?
ajay said,
March 2, 2026 @ 11:26 am
I came across a good one in the wild – "I almost rode my bike into a car bombing through the park".
ajay said,
March 2, 2026 @ 11:31 am
Yosemite Sue is perhaps Yosemite Sam’s sister?
Exactly. Or, more precisely, "Yosemite Sues" is a cowgirl-themed bar and grill, and a federal worker went there, hung up a trans flag, and as a result lost her job. That garden path works right up to the last word of the headline.
dainichi said,
March 3, 2026 @ 9:48 pm
Rick Rubenstein:
> "Fired" is the main verb
Interesting, that parsing is very low on the list for me. When having read "Federal Worker Fired", I find it much more likely that the worker WAS fired than that they HAD fired. When reading the next word "After", that belief is further strengthened, since I find the intransitive use of "fire" unlikely, especially for a "Federal Worker".
Richard Rubenstein said,
March 5, 2026 @ 6:17 pm
@dainichi I was a bit careless there; I should have said "[is] Fired", where headlinese elides the "is". "Federal Worker Fired After Hanging Trans Flag at Yosemite" would be a perfectly normal headline, and is, I think, what virtually every reader would assume is happening until they hit "Sues".
dainichi said,
March 5, 2026 @ 7:43 pm
R. Rubenstein, then we're in agreement.
I think what other commenters might be pointing out is that, compared to other garden-path sentences, the cognitive delay here is minimal. When you hit 'sues', just switch the predicate to a modifier and you're done.
What, at least to me, causes a significant delay in "The horse raced past the barn fell" is that, while I'm familiar with the transitive use of 'race' like in "I'll race you past the barn", the passive usage feels quite uncommon. In other specimens, like "The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families", the delay comes from having to mentally change 'complex' from an adjective to a noun, 'houses' from a noun to a verb etc.
Since Lang says 'correct parse only on the third try', I suspect he actually mis-parsed the whole sentence, like maybe
"(Federal Worker Fired) After (Hanging Trans Flag at Yosemite Sues Government)"
which makes no sense unless flags can sue, but is grammatically a valid parse.
If so, it might not be a garden path phenomenon in the strictest sense (you have to backtrack mid-sentence).
Philip Taylor said,
March 7, 2026 @ 4:44 am
A garden-path construction seen yesterday on a chalked (handwritten) sign outside the entrance to a local bowls club :
Mai Kuha said,
March 8, 2026 @ 5:43 pm
As usual, ChatGPT goes down in flames when I ask it to show the interpretations:
—
The headline has a classic attachment ambiguity. The participial clause **“after hanging trans flag at Yosemite”** can attach either to **“fired”** or to **“sues.”** That produces two distinct readings.
—
Interpretation 1
Meaning: the firing happened after the worker hung the flag.
Paraphrase:
A federal employee who hung a transgender flag at Yosemite was fired afterward, and that employee is now suing the government.
Tree (simplified constituency structure):
"`
[S
[NP
[NP Federal Worker]
[VP
[V Fired]
[PP
[P after]
[S
[VP
[V hanging]
[NP trans flag]
[PP [P at] [NP Yosemite]]
]
]
]
]
]
[VP
[V sues]
[NP Government]
]
]
"`
In this structure, **“after hanging…”** modifies **“fired.”**
—
Interpretation 2
Meaning: the lawsuit happened after the worker hung the flag.
Paraphrase:
A federal employee who was fired is suing the government after hanging a transgender flag at Yosemite.
Tree (simplified constituency structure):
"`
[S
[NP
[NP Federal Worker]
[VP
[V Fired]
]
]
[VP
[VP
[V sues]
[NP Government]
]
[PP
[P after]
[S
[VP
[V hanging]
[NP trans flag]
[PP [P at] [NP Yosemite]]
]
]
]
]
]
"`
Here **“after hanging…”** attaches to the **VP “sues Government.”**