Confusing headlines

[bradrn]

Two confusing headlines on the same day! This one:

Pro-China trolls fake accounts to hound foreign media over coronavirus

I think they’re using ‘fake’ as a verb here, but I’m not entirely sure…

[KathTheDragon]

"fake" as a verb is the obvious reading to me.

[linguistcat]

"Fake" as a verb is the ONLY reading for me.

[zompist]

"Fake" as a verb is the ONLY reading for me.

You get the other reading if you take "Pro-China" as an NP.

So many of these confusions come from having the same ending for 3s and plural. We should change back to -eth and -en.

[bradrn]

"Fake" as a verb is the ONLY reading for me.

It’s the only reading for me as well — I don’t understand zompist’s reading. It just took me a bit of time to figure out that this was the intended reading, which is why I posted the headline here.

[zompist]

Suppose it were

China trolls fake accounts to hound foreign media over coronavirus.

In case you still don't see it, the meaning is "China provokes false accounts, in order to (etc.)" Possibly not so salient because it doesn't make much sense as an activity, but it's certainly grammatical.

[bradrn]

Suppose it were

China trolls fake accounts to hound foreign media over coronavirus.

In case you still don't see it, the meaning is "China provokes false accounts, in order to (etc.)" Possibly not so salient because it doesn't make much sense as an activity, but it's certainly grammatical.

Actually, I do remember considering this interpretation! But since it doesn’t make much sense (as you say), I forgot about it afterwards.

[Linguoboy]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons nerfed bug moneymakers spawn rates (Polygon)

[bradrn]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons nerfed bug moneymakers spawn rates (Polygon)

That makes absolutely no sense to me.

[Pabappa]

having never played or even seen the game, but being a bit familiar with modern games in general, i am going to say that it means that they fixed a glitch people were exploiting to spawn multiple characters where only one should appear. "nerf" = "to firmly but gently stop an attack". whether the "bug" in this title means glitch or an animal from the game could go either way for me. "moneymakers" should have an apostrophe after the S but a lot of people just dont bother with apostrophes .... including me in most cases.

[bradrn]

having never played or even seen the game, but being a bit familiar with modern games in general, i am going to say that it means that they fixed a glitch people were exploiting to spawn multiple characters where only one should appear. "nerf" = "to firmly but gently stop an attack". whether the "bug" in this title means glitch or an animal from the game could go either way for me. "moneymakers" should have an apostrophe after the S but a lot of people just dont bother with apostrophes .... including me in most cases.

I still don’t get it. (BTW I did know what ‘nerf’ means.) To me, ‘bug moneymakers spawn rates’ looks like two nouns and an NP in a row, which doesn’t make sense.

[Pabappa]

well if you have a video game where you sell animals, you can make in-game money from that game. an avid player of that game could call himself a moneymaker.

and if that game lets the players create/buy/spawn one animal a day, but the avid player finds a glitch in that game that lets him repeat the spawn process ten times a day instead, he could be a "bug moneymaker". and when Nintendo decides to go after players like him, theyll be affecting his spawn rates.

So, Nintendo nerfs the spawn rates of the bug moneymakers. Properly spelt, it could be headlined as Nintendo [name of game] nerfed bug moneymakers' spawn rates. i hope i explained that well because i couldnt really think of a way to do so without simply reusing the words from the headline.

That said, I looked it up and the bug in this case is the literal type ... people are making and selling insects in the game, and apparently it is not a glitch but just an exploit that skilled players were able to take advantage of.

i would have perhaps reordered the headline so that "bug spawn rates" was packed together and "moneymakers' " placed before it or just left out altogether.

[bradrn]

well if you have a video game where you sell animals, you can make in-game money from that game. an avid player of that game could call himself a moneymaker.

and if that game lets the players create/buy/spawn one animal a day, but the avid player finds a glitch in that game that lets him repeat the spawn process ten times a day instead, he could be a "bug moneymaker". and when Nintendo decides to go after players like him, theyll be affecting his spawn rates.

So, Nintendo nerfs the spawn rates of the bug moneymakers. Properly spelt, it could be headlined as Nintendo [name of game] nerfed bug moneymakers' spawn rates. i hope i explained that well because i couldnt really think of a way to do so without simply reusing the words from the headline.

That said, I looked it up and the bug in this case is the literal type ... people are making and selling insects in the game, and apparently it is not a glitch but just an exploit that skilled players were able to take advantage of.

i would have perhaps reordered the headline so that "bug spawn rates" was packed together and "moneymakers' " placed before it or just left out altogether.

Thank you, it makes sense now! So it’s meant to be parsed as:

Animal Crossing: [New Horizons] nerfed [[bug moneymakers]’ spawn rates]

I think what tripped me up was the apposition of bug moneymaker; that isn’t something I would normally encounter. And getting rid of the apostrophe didn’t help either. I think I would have worded that Animal Crossing: New Horizons nerfed spawn rates of bug moneymakers. (I feel that there is a word for ‘a person who takes unfair advantage of something’, but I can’t remember it; if such a word does indeed exist, I would have used it.)

[Linguoboy]

(I feel that there is a word for ‘a person who takes unfair advantage of something’, but I can’t remember it;

"entrepreneur"?

[bradrn]

(I feel that there is a word for ‘a person who takes unfair advantage of something’, but I can’t remember it;

"entrepreneur"?

I don’t think that’s the definition of “entrepreneur”…

[chris_notts]

(I feel that there is a word for ‘a person who takes unfair advantage of something’, but I can’t remember it;

"entrepreneur"?

I don’t think that’s the definition of “entrepreneur”…

Maybe capitalist then? In the sense of one who has control over productive capital, not one who believes in markets.

[bradrn]

"entrepreneur"?

I don’t think that’s the definition of “entrepreneur”…

Maybe capitalist then? In the sense of one who has control over capital, not one who believes in markets.

Possibly… But I meant my original question in the context of gaming, not economically, politically or sarcastically. I suppose ‘cheater’ could be close to what I was looking for, but New Horizons nerfed bug cheaters’ spawn rates doesn’t seem right (mostly since ‘cheater’ has the implication that the cheater is going against the rules).

[chris_notts]

I don’t think that’s the definition of “entrepreneur”…

Maybe capitalist then? In the sense of one who has control over capital, not one who believes in markets.

Possibly… But I meant my original question in the context of gaming, not economically, politically or sarcastically. I suppose ‘cheater’ could be close to what I was looking for, but New Horizons nerfed bug cheaters’ spawn rates doesn’t seem right (mostly since ‘cheater’ has the implication that the cheater is going against the rules).

Bug exploiter?

[bradrn]

Maybe capitalist then? In the sense of one who has control over capital, not one who believes in markets.

Possibly… But I meant my original question in the context of gaming, not economically, politically or sarcastically. I suppose ‘cheater’ could be close to what I was looking for, but New Horizons nerfed bug cheaters’ spawn rates doesn’t seem right (mostly since ‘cheater’ has the implication that the cheater is going against the rules).

Bug exploiter?

Yes! I think that was the word!

(Don’t you hate it when a word’s just on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t quite remember it?)

[linguistcat]

Ironically, in this case it's not a game bug that people were exploiting. In the game, from what I've heard, several in game insects sell for a lot. So if someone spent all their time bug hunting, the only real limit on how much money they could make would be the time it takes to catch a given bug, and how often those bugs show up.

But I would have read it the other way if I didn't have context