The case of the missing particle

[Mark Mandel]

Which I suppose could have been written originally with a much shorter
object clause which the reporter then expanded without noticing the weight
violation and double "out". ... But I'm finding it hard to imagine.

OTOH, as I read this aloud to my wife just now, she didn't hear the problem
of the missing "out" till I pointed it ... uh-huh. So it may have slipped
past the writer, too.

She points out yet a third issue: Given the context of the preceding
paragraph --

Investigators found a shoeprint on the railing in front of the exhibit and
are trying to determine if it matches the attack victims' shoes amid
speculation that the men might have taunted the tiger.

-- are they talking about a tree limb or a human limb?

Missing particle, waffling gender, unclear referent. End of the inning.

m a m

On Dec 29, 2007 4:04 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> At 12:47 PM -0500 12/29/07, Mark Mandel wrote:
> >"They are treating the zoo as a crime scene and have not ruled the
> >possibility that the tiger latched on to a limb slung over her exhibit
> wall
> >to pull itself out."
> >(http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN28371903)
> >
> >Possibilities are seldom if ever "ruled". The culprit here may be some
> >careless copyreader, who saw the final "out" -- which goes with "pull
> itself
> >___" -- and didn't read the clause in between. Further evidence: the
> >waffling over whether this tiger should be referred to with feminine or
> >neuter pronouns.
> >
> Maybe the original was
> >"They are treating the zoo as a crime scene and have not ruled [the
> >possibility that the tiger latched on to a limb slung over her exhibit
> wall
> to pull itself out] out."
>
> LH
>
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>

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