Headlines roll by; heads will roll by

[Dennis R Preston]

I'm having trouble getting the ambiguity from the "the." "Buy a pound" and
"by the pound" seem pretty fixed to me.

dInIs

Matthew Gordon writes:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Matthew Gordon <gordonmj at MISSOURI.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Headlines roll by; heads will roll by
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On a related note, I was in a Dunkin Donuts this weekend and noticed a
> hand-written sign that read:
> "Whole bean coffee
> buy the pound
> $13.99"
> or something like that. The wording and layout made it ambiguous enough that
> either 'buy' or 'by' was possible.
>
>
> On 4/7/08 11:57 AM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:
>
>> NYTimes headline, today, columns 1-3, front page (New England Edition):
>>
>> When Foreigners by the Factory: 2 Towns, Opposite Paths.
>>
>> America for Sale: The Outsiders.
>>
>> Joel
>>
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