Confusing headlines

[Ryusenshi]

I read the sentence correctly, because I'm used to gaming lingo, where "broken" means "badly designed" (in particular "overpowered", but it wouldn't make sense for a law).

[Darren]

I read the sentence correctly, because I'm used to gaming lingo, where "broken" means "badly designed" (in particular "overpowered", but it wouldn't make sense for a law).

I'd normally have a similar interpretation of "X is/are broken," but in this case it's talking about laws, and "laws are broken" would be more commonly used with the passive sense.

[bradrn]

Sydney mops up after ‘crazy’ storms cause $320m damage



This is a pretty good example of a garden path sentence: Sydney mops up after ‘crazy’ storms is perfectly acceptable as a sentence, but [Sydney mops up after ‘crazy’ storms] cause $320m damage is not. Adding to the confusion is the fact that I very rarely hear mop up used as an intransitive verb: I usually hear it used as part of mop up after, which is transitive.

[Mornche Geddick]

Strip club shock: magistrates may act on indecent shows.

I dunno, would you pay money to watch magistrates strip?

[Linguoboy]

At Guantanamo 9/11 Pre-Trial CIA Torture Program Architect Details Waterboarding (NPR)

[bradrn]

At Guantanamo 9/11 Pre-Trial CIA Torture Program Architect Details Waterboarding (NPR)

Gosh, that’s confusing. I think it’s meant to be parsed as:

[At [Guantanamo 9/11 Pre-Trial]] [[CIA Torture Program] Architect] Details Waterboarding

But I’m really not sure. The problem is that it has no less than seven nouns in a row, which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen in any English sentence before.

______________
Actually, I just found the article, and it says that ‘One of the architects of the CIA's torture program for the accused 9/11 terrorists testified … publicly under oath for the first time as part of a pre-trial hearing for the criminal case against five accused 9/11 terrorists’. So my parse was correct. Still, that was pretty confusing.

[zyxw59]

Not only does it have 7 nouns in a row in its intended parsing, the main verb also looks like a noun, making it look like a preposition followed by nine nouns.

[Pabappa]

a new aggregator site from the Murdochs uses AI and might be truncating headlines, leading to such as this:

Judge orders re-arrest warrants for Fotis Dulos, who remains in ‘dire condition’ in New York hospital after suicide.

the headline left off word "attempt", which appears normally on the destination site.

edit: i forgot to the link the aggregator, which is https://knewz.com/

[bradrn]

Not particularly confusing, but a great example of a zeugma which I wanted to share, and a lovely pun:

Renewables make sense and dollars

[zompist]

Label on a dumpster: EMPTY WHEN FULL

that's deep, man

https://twitter.com/ProfFeynman/status/ ... 16/photo/1

[Linguoboy]

”We hardly ever see him”: Canadian concerned father constructing coronavirus facility at risk (CBC)

[bradrn]

”We hardly ever see him”: Canadian concerned father constructing coronavirus facility at risk (CBC)

Huh?

…

…

…

Oh, I get it! [Canadian(, )concerned father] [(who is) constructing (a) [coronavirus facility]]] (is) [at risk]. It would be much clearer if Canadian and concerned were the other way around; this way it looks too much like Canada (is) concerned (that) father constructing coronavirus facility at risk, which parses pretty differently.

[alynnidalar]

I'm interpreting it as "(A) Canadian (is) concerned (his/her/their/etc.) father, (who is) constructing (a) coronavirus facility, (is) at risk".

[bradrn]

I'm interpreting it as "(A) Canadian (is) concerned (his/her/their/etc.) father, (who is) constructing (a) coronavirus facility, (is) at risk".

Oh, right! That makes a lot more sense than my interpretation.

[alynnidalar]

The best confusing headlines are when you can interpret them two or three different ways and still be confused.

[Raphael]

From the BBC:

Hamilton 'physically and mentally on another level' for new season

Not that confusing in itself, but when I first saw it in my RSS reader, I thought at first that it was about the Broadway musical, when, in fact, it is about the Formula 1 driver.

[Linguoboy]

Hamilton 'physically and mentally on another level' for new season

Yeah, I was like, "Wait, Disney made a series of it already?"

[Linguoboy]

Elon Musk's Boring Company is done excavating first Las Vegas tunnel (Endgadget)

[Raphael]

From the Guardian:

Mike and Annie Cannon-Brookes pledge $12m to supply solar systems for disaster relief

Sure, by my and most people's standards, $12m is a lot of money, but I doubt that it would be enough to buy an entire solar system, let alone several ones...

[Travis B.]

Elon Musk's Boring Company is done excavating first Las Vegas tunnel (Endgadget)

I like it that their URL is just https://www.boringcompany.com/.

Calling yourself the "Boring Company" in a way sounds cooler than the average marketing name.