unwittingly

[George Thompson]

Headline writers deal all the time with trying to say much in little,
frequently sowing confusion.  Here I think the headline would be improved
by changing "unwittingly" to "unknowingly" and putting that word either at
the beginning or the end.
Unknowing Driver Rescues Friend From Drowning
Driver Rescues Friend From Drowning Unknowingly

Even better would be to revert to the stacked headline of the early 20th C:
Driver Rescues Drowning Man.
Finds He Is a Friend.

I was reading in the paper just the other day, that a NY guy went down to
the harbor just to pass the time, when a boat from England was unloading a
troop of immigrants.  One fell into the water, he jumped in, rescued him,
discovered that it was his brother, coming from Ireland.
Citation upon request -- ca. 1830s or 40s

GAT

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 7:25 AM, Victor Steinbok <aardvark66 at gmail.com>wrote:

> I first saw the headline and it puzzled me a bit.
>
> http://www.wisn.com/video/**30483779/detail.html<http://www.wisn.com/video/30483779/detail.html>
> Driver Unwittingly Rescues Friend From Drowning
>
>
> What does that headline mean to you? Given all the options, my first
> reaction was, (1) did he not know he was saving someone? Then came the
> secondary thought--or (2) did he not that the person he was rescuing was
> a friend?
>
> It turns out, the correct interpretation is (2).
>
>  A driver saves a young man who turns out to be a family friend.
>>
>
> Maybe I am reading too much into this ambiguity--I'm sure, Ron Butters
> will think so. Nonetheless, I wanted to share it.
>
>    VS-)
>
> ------------------------------**------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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