Timeline for Ambiguity in Negation: "John did not come because of the rain"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 7, 2020 at 23:51 | history | protected | Mitch | ||
| Mar 7, 2020 at 15:32 | comment | added | Fattie | Regarding this 7 year old question (and the other 19 million questions on the site which begin "Wow! Oh no! I was astounded to discover a sentence in English which is ambiguous! .. " I suggest the site adds a new close reason "Questions about ambiguity in English are closed". | |
| Mar 7, 2020 at 9:37 | answer | added | Greybeard | timeline score: 0 | |
| Mar 7, 2020 at 9:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackEnglish/status/1236215214577721349 | ||
| Mar 7, 2020 at 8:38 | comment | added | WS2 | The easiest way to avoid such an ambiguity as this is simply to be aware of it and tailor your remarks accordingly. | |
| Mar 7, 2020 at 7:56 | answer | added | Richard | timeline score: -1 | |
| Jul 23, 2014 at 13:40 | comment | added | Dan Bron | Wouldn't it be more common to express the second meaning as "John did not come for the X"? That's also ambiguous, but it's more common to express the idea of coming for some reason other than X. Of course, the real disambiguation is in the relatively desirability of X; "rain" is not desirable, "pretzels" are, so "John did not come because of the rain", "John did not come because of the pretzels", "John did not come for the rain" and "John did not come for the pretzels" all fundamentally derive their meanings from this distinction. | |
| Jul 23, 2014 at 7:53 | comment | added | Fattie | "What is the easiest way to avoid this ambiguity?" It's a horrible, completely ambiguous sentence, which cannot be fixed by moving a word around. It needs to be completely different, almost certainly two sentences (exactly as in your examples). | |
| Jul 23, 2014 at 7:49 | comment | added | Fattie | I'm afraid I disagree with Jim. It is not disambiguated, at all, in spoken speech, and intonation is unrelated. | |
| Jul 23, 2014 at 7:47 | comment | added | Fattie | Just FTR. For complete clarity in writing, always use more, not less sentences. Generally, if your aim/need is absolute, total, clarity - use more not less sentences. (Note that this is, precisely, what you did in the two numbered explanatory examples.) | |
| Jul 23, 2014 at 5:05 | answer | added | Peter | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jul 23, 2014 at 4:27 | comment | added | Jim | In the spoken form this is easily disambiguated with intonation. Rain spoken, as a statement,with a descending tone is used for #1. Rain spoken with tone starting high, going lower for the vowel and rising again at the end, as if you were to follow it with, "but because he got a flat tire." is used for #2. | |
| Jul 23, 2014 at 3:00 | answer | added | rajah9 | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jul 23, 2014 at 2:34 | history | asked | curious-proofreader | CC BY-SA 3.0 |