Tuesday, December 22, 2015

English ambiguity

I saw the following tweet (edited for style):

As Muslim women, we ask you not to wear the hijab in the name of interfaith solidarity!*

What's interesting is that the sentence can be interpreted at least two ways:

1. In the name of interfaith solidarity, we ask you not to wear the hijab.

2. We ask you not to [wear the hijab in the name of interfaith solidarity]. (i.e., You may wear the hijab for other reasons, but not for the cause of interfaith solidarity.)

Strange, eh?



*The head-scratcher is that this tweet appears to have been written by a man. Are we looking at a dangling modifier, here?


_

No comments: