[Ads-l] "Belgian Soldiers Shoot Dead Knife Attacker"

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Mon Aug 28 04:19:02 UTC 2017


These earlier headlines are also from Reuters, so maybe it's their house
style.

"Alabama police shoot dead fugitive cop killer" (Feb. 3, 2012)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alabama-police-shooting-idUSTRE81301N20120204

"San Francisco police shoot dead woman who drove car at officers" (Mar. 18,
2015)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-police-california-idUSKBN0ME0LB20150318

Both noted by commenters on Language Log posts about crash blossoms.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3746
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=18274


On Sun, Aug 27, 2017 at 11:30 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/08/25/world/europe/25reuters-belgium-
> security.html
>
> The knife attacker was dead but they shot him anyway (just in case he came
> back to life)?
> They shot someone attacking with a dead knife (just in case it came back
> to life)?
>
> I know “dead” is a resultative, but for me it only works if it comes after
> the object:
> “Belgian Soldiers Shoot Knife Attacker Dead”
>
>
>

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