Confusing headlines

[sasasha]

Saudi Arabia ends death penalty for minors and floggings

>_< Why did they put "and floggings" there?

I think they expressed it this way because they wanted to communicate that they ended the death penalty for minors, and also they ended floggings for everyone.

Here's another Swedish one from me again, if anyone's interested:

Korttidsboende för äldre smittade

I interpreted that as:
[korttidsboende-∅ för äldre-∅] smitta-d-e
[short.term.home-PL for elder-PL] infect-PST.PTCP-PL
Short term homes for the elderly have been infected.

When they actually meant:
korttidsboende för [äldre-∅ smitta-d-e]
short.term.home.SG for [elder-PL infect-PST.PTCP-PL]
A short term home for the elder who have been infected.

I feel that there should be a way to do this in English as well, but I can’t think of anything.

Well, in exactly the same way as the Swedish example, poetic/archaic registers of modern English can get away with it: 'Short term homes for the elderly infected' where 'infected' could be modifying 'elderly'. Just not standard registers.

[chris_notts]

Well, in exactly the same way as the Swedish example, poetic/archaic registers of modern English can get away with it: 'Short term homes for the elderly infected' where 'infected' could be modifying 'elderly'. Just not standard registers.

Sounds fine to me in standard English, because both elderly and infected are adjectives masquerading as nouns so either order works when you combine them into an NP:

the elderly man = adjective elderly
the infected man = adjective infected
the elderly infected = adjective elderly, nominalised plural infected
the infected elderly = adjective infected, nominalised plural elderly

[bradrn]

Well, in exactly the same way as the Swedish example, poetic/archaic registers of modern English can get away with it: 'Short term homes for the elderly infected' where 'infected' could be modifying 'elderly'. Just not standard registers.

Sounds fine to me in standard English, because both elderly and infected are adjectives masquerading as nouns so either order works when you combine them into an NP:

the elderly man = adjective elderly
the infected man = adjective infected
the elderly infected = adjective elderly, nominalised plural infected
the infected elderly = adjective infected, nominalised plural elderly

For me, ‘the infected elderly’ is fine, but ‘the elderly infected’ is not. I wonder why? (Possible explanation: maybe ‘elderly’ for me is a noun, whereas ‘infected’ is still an adjective and so cannot be modified when used as the head of an NP. But why has one become a noun while the other hasn’t?)

[bradrn]

Dead Sea Scroll fragments thought to be blank reveal text

(I personally didn’t find this one confusing, but I saw some other people complaining about it.)

[chris_notts]

For me, ‘the infected elderly’ is fine, but ‘the elderly infected’ is not. I wonder why? (Possible explanation: maybe ‘elderly’ for me is a noun, whereas ‘infected’ is still an adjective and so cannot be modified when used as the head of an NP. But why has one become a noun while the other hasn’t?)

Well, infected is an adjective because it's a past participle. Given the large number of -ed inflected participles, it'd be harder for one to acquire a new class or status than a word with a less productive / inflectional suffix like elderly.

I'm still not sure that the elderly as noun analysis is correct though. Even when compared to irregular plural or mass nouns it doesn't show the same distribution. An example would be occurring as a bare plural or mass object:

I want food
I want data
I want children
???I want elderly

[bradrn]

For me, ‘the infected elderly’ is fine, but ‘the elderly infected’ is not. I wonder why? (Possible explanation: maybe ‘elderly’ for me is a noun, whereas ‘infected’ is still an adjective and so cannot be modified when used as the head of an NP. But why has one become a noun while the other hasn’t?)

Well, infected is an adjective because it's a past participle. Given the large number of -ed inflected participles, it'd be harder for one to acquire a new class or status than a word with a less productive / inflectional suffix like elderly.

I'm still not sure that the elderly as noun analysis is correct though. Even when compared to irregular plural or mass nouns it doesn't show the same distribution. An example would be occurring as a bare plural or mass object:

I want food
I want data
I want children
???I want elderly

But isn’t that because elderly is singular, while food, data, children are plural? But I will admit that elderly definitely doesn’t seem as ‘noun-y’ as most other nouns. So, then: if elderly isn’t a noun, then why can it be modified by an adjective?

[chris_notts]

For me, ‘the infected elderly’ is fine, but ‘the elderly infected’ is not. I wonder why? (Possible explanation: maybe ‘elderly’ for me is a noun, whereas ‘infected’ is still an adjective and so cannot be modified when used as the head of an NP. But why has one become a noun while the other hasn’t?)

Well, infected is an adjective because it's a past participle. Given the large number of -ed inflected participles, it'd be harder for one to acquire a new class or status than a word with a less productive / inflectional suffix like elderly.

I'm still not sure that the elderly as noun analysis is correct though. Even when compared to irregular plural or mass nouns it doesn't show the same distribution. An example would be occurring as a bare plural or mass object:

I want food
I want data
I want children
???I want elderly

But isn’t that because elderly is singular, while food, data, children are plural? But I will admit that elderly definitely doesn’t seem as ‘noun-y’ as most other nouns. So, then: if elderly isn’t a noun, then why can it be modified by an adjective?

Semantically and for the purposes of agreement elderly is plural when used as a noun, like any other zero nominalised adjective:

The infected are here
???The infected is here
The elderly are here
???The elderly is here

[KathTheDragon]

Semantically and for the purposes of agreement elderly is plural when used as a noun, like any other zero nominalised adjective:

The infected are here
???The infected is here
The elderly are here
???The elderly is here

This requires the definite article, however:
*Elderly are here

Note also:
I want the elderly

[chris_notts]

Semantically and for the purposes of agreement elderly is plural when used as a noun, like any other zero nominalised adjective:

The infected are here
???The infected is here
The elderly are here
???The elderly is here

This requires the definite article, however:
*Elderly are here

Note also:
I want the elderly

Yes, that's exactly the point. Elderly behaves like any other adjective, and can be nominalised as a plural only by adding the article. It doesn't behave like a plural or mass noun, which are nominal even without an article present.

[bradrn]

Alright then, so elderly is clearly an adjective — I do agree with this, given that it can only occur with the definite article. But none of this helps explain why it, unlike most adjectives, may be further modified by an adjective. Does anyone have any ideas?

(Also, this discussion is getting a bit long; should we split it off into a different thread maybe?)

[sasasha]

Well, in exactly the same way as the Swedish example, poetic/archaic registers of modern English can get away with it: 'Short term homes for the elderly infected' where 'infected' could be modifying 'elderly'. Just not standard registers.

Sounds fine to me in standard English, because both elderly and infected are adjectives masquerading as nouns so either order works when you combine them into an NP:

the elderly man = adjective elderly
the infected man = adjective infected
the elderly infected = adjective elderly, nominalised plural infected
the infected elderly = adjective infected, nominalised plural elderly

For me, ‘the infected elderly’ is fine, but ‘the elderly infected’ is not. I wonder why? (Possible explanation: maybe ‘elderly’ for me is a noun, whereas ‘infected’ is still an adjective and so cannot be modified when used as the head of an NP. But why has one become a noun while the other hasn’t?)

Just to take this discussion back to this point, for me the analysis of 'the elderly infected' only works as a reversed (i.e. head initial) phrase where 'elderly' is the noun, and 'infected' has the adjectival role. This is only possible in poetic or consciously archaic registers (e.g. 'the light fantastic') - and occasionally, I feel, in newspaper headlines.

As to the other question of why 'the elderly [adj] infected [noun]' doesn't work, I don't quite know. And lack terminology to try to express my instinct as to the reason. But it seems to me that there is a heirarchy going on here: 'the elderly' is a common adjective-derived noun IMO. It's actually the best noun in my idiolect for a really commonly discussed concept - better than phrases like 'old people' which can't take a definite article and is potentially insensitive, maybe only bested by phrases such as 'the over 75s' - which are of course less flexible.

Whereas 'the infected' just doesn't have the same kind of status in the lexicon in terms of familiarity and context: outside of zombie lit, it seems too strong even to be useful in the context of the pandemic (possibly because of this zombie association). So it just doesn't read comfortably as a head noun in my head - my brain would rather analyse this as poetic syntax.

[mèþru]

More than a dozen police officers were injured and 22 were arrested as fires and looting hit Philadelphia, the KOP Mall, and elsewhere.

[bradrn]

More than a dozen police officers were injured and 22 were arrested as fires and looting hit Philadelphia, the KOP Mall, and elsewhere.

What’s confusing about this?

[alynnidalar]

It's ambiguous whether the 22 arrested were police officers or not. (they weren't, but it's easy to read it that way)

[bradrn]

It's ambiguous whether the 22 arrested were police officers or not. (they weren't, but it's easy to read it that way)

Oh, right, I see it now.

[bradrn]

Australian journalists attack outside White House raised with US government

[bradrn]

Japan weighs up fewer spectators and mandatory COVID-19 for rescheduled Olympic Games

As one person commented: ‘Is mandatory Covid-19 really necessary. Will they have someone coughing on you as they arrive?’

[Linguoboy]

PG and Yorkshire Tea tell anti-racism opponents 'don't buy our tea' (BBC)
Since revised to read: PG and Yorkshire Tea tell Black Lives Matter critics 'don't buy our tea'

[bradrn]

This one’s not too confusing, but makes up for it in incomprehensability:

Dead cat bounce fears: Veteran stock picker says market jump may not last

Who knew that dead cats could bounce?

(The article explains: ‘“dead cat bounce” [is] a term used to describe a false, temporary recovery from a significant decline, or a bear market followed by a prolonged continuation of the downtrend.’)

[Raphael]

Hm, I've got the impression that "dead cat bounce" has been used for quite a while for "a period when numbers that have been going down for a while, such as economic indicators or politicians' poll numbers, temporarily go up, before going back to their previous downwards slide".