{"id":473,"date":"2007-05-28T20:51:03","date_gmt":"2007-05-28T11:51:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-05-28\/473"},"modified":"2007-05-28T20:51:03","modified_gmt":"2007-05-28T11:51:03","slug":"twisted-english-in-the-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2007-05-28\/473","title":{"rendered":"Twisted English in the News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<p>I noticed this headline in <a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/i\/964\"\nclass='quiet'>the news<\/a> today:<\/p> <p><a class='quiet'\nstyle='margin:30px; font-size:120%'\nhref=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/afp\/20070526\/sc_afp\/ugandaenvironment\">Uganda\nshelves plan to convert rainforest<\/a><\/p>\n\n<p>Now, let's imagine a non-native English speaker comes across this\nheadline but doesn't know that &#8220;shelves&#8221; is <span class='nobr'>a verb<\/span> meaning\n&#8220;to suspend indefinitely&#8221; and instead thinks that it's the more\ncommonly seen plural of &#8220;shelf.&#8221; The headline still makes\ncomplete syntactic sense, although the part of speech played by <b>every\nword<\/b> changes.<\/p>\n\n<p>What had been the verb becomes the subject, what had been the subject\nbecomes an adjective, and so on...<\/p>\n\n<style type=\"text\/css\">\n  #post473 td  { border-right: solid 1px #422; border-bottom: solid 1px #422 }\n  #post473 td:first-child { background-color: #422 }\n  #post473 .relatedlinks td { background-color:inherit; border:none }\n  .a473 { font-weight:bold }\n  .b473 { text-align: center }\n  .c473 { text-align: center; font-weight:bold }\n<\/style>\n\n\n<table style='margin-top:20px; margin-left:30px' cellspacing='0' cellpadding='7' border='0'>\n<tr>\n      <td style='border:none'><\/td>\n      <th style='background-color:#422'>Intended<\/th>\n      <th style='background-color:#422'>Perceived<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n\n<tr><td class='a473'>Uganda<\/td>    <td class='b473'>noun<\/td><td class='c473'>adjective<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td class='a473'>shelves<\/td>   <td class='b473'>verb<\/td><td class='c473'>noun<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td class='a473'>plan<\/td>      <td class='b473' rowspan='4'>object phrase<\/td><td class='c473'>verb<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td class='a473'>to<\/td><td class='c473' rowspan='3'>infinitive phrase<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td class='a473'>convert<\/td><\/tr>\n<tr><td class='a473'>rainforest<\/td><\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n<p>I might have some of those labels wrong, but the point is that\neverything was able to change to keep <span class='nobr'>a syntactically<\/span> valid sentence.<\/p>\n\n<p>Semantics (the meaning), of course, are another matter entirely. You\ndon't need to be <span class='nobr'>a native<\/span> speaker to know that it makes little sense to\ntalk about <span class='nobr'>a shelf<\/span> in Uganda making plans of any sort, so the student of\nEnglish is forced to wonder what the heck this might mean. Shelves are\nnormally made of wood.... rainforest wood? <span class='nobr'>Is the story<\/span> about people in\nUganda planning to convert rainforest wood into shelving?<\/p>\n\n<p>Where would one even start to look for their misunderstanding?<\/p>\n\n<p>When they got around to considering the second word, well, <a\nhref=\"http:\/\/education.yahoo.com\/reference\/dictionary\/entry\/shelves\">looking\nup &#8220;shelves&#8221;<\/a> merely tells them what they already knew: it's\nthe plural of shelf.<\/p>\n\n<p>I'm sure much head scratching would ensue, to be relieved only if they\nmiraculously guessed to <a\nhref=\"http:\/\/education.yahoo.com\/reference\/dictionary\/entry\/shelve\">look up\n&#8220;shelve&#8221;<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p>What a silly language! <span class='nobr'>I'm so thankful<\/span> that <span class='nobr'>I speak<\/span> it natively, and so\nvery much respect Fumie and others that have learned it artificially.\nJapanese is much easier than English, <span class='nobr'>I think<\/span> (which is why <span class='nobr'>I have<\/span> no\nexcuse for speaking as poorly as <span class='nobr'>I do<\/span>).<\/p>\n\n<p>Bill Bryson's <a\nhref=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Mother-Tongue-Bill-Bryson\/dp\/0380715430\/masteringregu-20\">The\nMother Tongue<\/a> is full of interesting English like that shown above,\nenough to make your head spin if you're <span class='nobr'>a native<\/span> English speaker, and to\nwant to kill yourself if you're <span class='nobr'>a student.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p>Newspaper headlines are often <span class='nobr'>a source<\/span> of this kind of humor\/horror.\n\nWhen <span class='nobr'>I was<\/span> <span class='nobr'>a kid,<\/span> my brother Alan had <span class='nobr'>a clipping<\/span> on the fridge for the\nlongest time: <b>Councilmen butt heads at meeting<\/b>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--href='\/blog\/2007-04-24\/435' -->\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I noticed this headline in the news today:<\/p> <p>Uganda shelves plan to convert rainforest<\/p> <p>Now, let's imagine a non-native English speaker comes across this headline but doesn't know that \"shelves\" is a verb meaning \"to suspend indefinitely\" and instead thinks that it's the more commonly seen plural of \"shelf.\" The headline still makes complete syntactic sense, although the part of speech played by <b>every word<\/b> changes.<\/p> <p>What had been the verb becomes the subject, what had been the subject becomes an adjective, and so on...<\/p> Intended Perceived Uganda nounadjective shelves verbnoun plan object phraseverb toinfinitive phrase convert rainforest <p>I might [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}