The case of the missing particle

[Wilson Gray]

On Dec 29, 2007 6:02 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: The case of the missing particle
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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

So the local CSI is going to match a single shoeprint to the shoes of
all three victims?

-Wilson

> 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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All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
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                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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