Pirates paid $9m ransom

[Paul Frank]

It took me a long second to realize that the headline "Pirates paid
$9m ransom" meant that the pirates _were_ paid a 9 million dollar
ransom and not that they did the paying. I suppose that pirates
occasionally pay for stuff (parrot treats, tattoos, and the like), but
when it comes to ransoms they are always the payees and never the
payers.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/pirates-paid-9m-ransom-20101107-17ivd.html

Paul

Paul Frank
Translator
Chinese, German, French, Italian > English
Espace de l'Europe 16
Neuchâtel, Switzerland
paulfrank at bfs.admin.ch
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org