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Punctuation cahn't fix this

R

rrlund

Well-known Member
I guess these make sense if you think about them. lol

The old man the boat.
The horse ran past the barn fell.
The man who hunts ducks out occasionally.
British left waffles on Falkland Islands.
 
But it helps?

The old, man the boat.
The horse ran past the barn fell.
The man who hunts, ducks out, occasionally.
British left, waffles on Falkland Islands.

The old guy drives the boat while the young ski.
I have been known to duck out of work for a quick hunting foray.
The left often opposes military action.

Line 2 is a mystery.
 
How about: The Oliver ran past the barn died.

Most likely ethanol related that could have been avoided with a little Seafoam. lol
 
Amphibology is always fascinating, at least to me. Here's a link to a poem on the Writer's Almanac that is made of headlines. If you believe that poetry has to rhyme and make sense please don't click on the link, it will probably just make you unhappy.
Zach
Headlines by Robert Phillips
 
Was saving this for a funny, but it fits here better.
a237094.jpg
 
Jon, now you have every person reading this and putting the word "only" in every spot just to try it out lol. Works though!
 
No,she didn't hit me. I didn't buy that 2655 yesterday. I did have a Keck Gonnerman steam engine offered to me for a fair price though.
 
Applying proper grammar, I believe there's only one correct way to read the first one. Assuming it's a sentence, it needs a verb. The only possible verb there is "man." So, "The old" has to be the subject, and they "man the boat."

Don't believe the second one can be a proper sentence, regardless of how you try to read it. Has to have at least another word to make it grammatically correct. Could say "The horse [that] ran past the barn fell." Or, it could say "The horse ran past[, and] the barn fell." Or, "The horse ran past the barn [that] fell." Or, "The horse ran past the barn[, which] fell." In any event, once you make it grammatically correct, the ambiguity disappears.

In the third one, you cannot read "The man who hunts ducks" as the subject. If you try to read it that way, it is grammatically incorrect because you cannot say that the subject of a sentence "out occasionally," which would make no sense. You could say that the subject of a sentence "[is] out occasionally," but that removes any potential ambiguity. As written, the only correct interpretation is "The man who hunts" is the subject, and he "ducks out occasionally."

The fourth one is the only one that contains an ambiguity when read according to proper grammar.
 
This is what on one of the game shows they called before and after where there were 2 sayings but both had one common word in the middle, took me a long time to figure it out. Haven't watched TV since Char passed a year and half ago. so do not know if they are still using that before-after thing or not.
 
"The old man the boat" - I remember discussing church music with a preacher, and how the young folks like to sing strange songs off of a projected image with a little bouncing ball, while us old folks like to sing every verse of The Old Rugged Cross, mostly from memory. He pointed out the need to attract the young into the fold, but said, "The old man the boat", meaning he was also mindful of where the tithes come from, and who has time to spend helping out.

"The horse ran past the barn fell" - The word "fell" can describe a high hill in some parts of the world. The sentence, in my neck of the woods, would be written, "That there horse ran right on past the hill with the barn on it".

"The man who hunts ducks out occasionally" - They close school during deer season here in our community because of all of the students "ducking out".

"British left waffles on Falkland Islands" - You'll never get everyone to agree on anything.

Interesting post Randy.
 
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