3
Jun
2011
Hyphens are your friend
Submitted by Karl HagenThis morning's google news served up a nice crash blossom, courtesy of the Times Daily:
"Racist language bill passes"
When I first saw the headline, I thought it was an editorial inveighing against some bill about language that happened to be racist, rather than a bill about racist language, which, on reading the article, I find to be the intended interpretation.
In speech, there's no ambiguity, as the stressed syllable in language gets demoted to secondary stress in the racist-language bill interpretation. In writing, though, hyphens are your friend.
Original article here.
Comments
Yeah I agree. This gets to be