Ambiguous Syntax: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''Cordelia''': Wow... so, what's a rogue demon?|''[[Angel]]'', "Parting Gifts"}}

 

* From ''[[Mary Poppins]]'': "I met a man with a wooden leg named Smith". "What was the name of his other leg?"

* ''[[Clue (film)|Clue]]'':

'''Wadsworth''': I think she meant he threatened, in public, to kill her. }}

** Also

'''Mrs. White''': [shatters glass] PLEASE! }}

* ''[[Lesbian Vampire Killers]]'': a debate occurred on this very wiki wondered whether this movie would be about lesbians who killed vampires, lesbian vampires who were killers or people who killed lesbian vampires. It turned out to be both the first and third options.

* ''[[Eight Legged Freaks]]''. The fact that the title is not hyphenated seems to mean that it could be read as "Eight freaks with legs", rather than "Freaks with eight legs".

* There's also this little exchange from ''[[Kiss Kiss Bang Bang]]:''

'''Harry''': Well, he's got a point. }}

* ''[[The Little Rascals]]'' had a three foot man eating chicken in a freak show. It was one of the kids wearing a fake mustache, and eating from a bucket of chicken.

* ''[[Airplane!]]'' has one character speaking of a "drinking problem" while narrating a flashback, and a second later we see he in fact meant a problem with his ''ability'' to drink, namely that he was spilling the whole glass on his face.

** Airplane used this trope for a lot of its humor:

'''Ted:''' No, I've been nervous lots of times. }}

*** Some of these are repeated ad nauseum and it was awesome.

* ''[[Animal Crackers]]'': "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I dunno."

* From [[The King's Speech]]:

'''Bertie''': Penguins have wings which are sh-sh-shaped like herrings. }}

* This famous exchange from ''[[Happy Gilmore]]'' sort of qualifies:

'''Happy Gilmore:''' ''(laughing)'' You eat pieces of shit for breakfast? }}

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* From ''[[wikipedia:The Elements of Style|The Elements of Style]]'':

(...) In the lefthand version of the third example, the reader's heart goes out to those 18 poor fellows frozen in a steel tank. }}

* Panda: ''[[Eats Shoots and Leaves]]''.

* In a ''[[Grail Quest]]'' game book, you enter a room containing 'a man eating plant'. The next line informs you that the plant he's eating is a carrot.

* From ''[[Nursery Crime|The Fourth Bear]]'':

"Yes. Don't like the food, bed's uncomfortable, waiting list's too long. Usual crap." }}

** An entire scene in ''[[Thursday Next|The Well of Lost Plots]]'' is built on this, when Thursday meets a man with a hat named Wilbur (or something like that.) The man is apparently cursed with bad syntax, and is constantly apologizing for it.

* ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'':

'''Ford:''' You ask a glass of water. }}

* King Pyrrhus is said to have consulted an oracle of the god Apollo about whether he should fight the Romans. Apollo advised him Aio te, Aeacida, Romanos vincere posse, (Ennius, Annales fr. 167). The sentence may be translated “I say, O son of Ajax, that you the Romans can conquer” –meaning either “You can conquer the Romans” or The Romans can conquer you”. (Cicero, De Divinatione ii. 56, § 116, remarked that it was odd that Apollo should speak in Latin.) This makes it [[Older Than Feudalism]]. The line became a proverbial example of amphiboly (ambiguous grammatical structure), and is quoted as such by Shakespeare (Henry VI, Part 2, I. iv. 62).

== [[Live Action TV]] ==

* ''[[Boy Meets World]]'':

'''Topanga:''' I don't know. I ate it anyway. }}

* In an episode of ''[[The Latest Buzz]]'', a psychic tells Michael that he will encounter "a 6-foot man eating chicken". He then sees his teacher, who is 6 feet tall, eating chicken and becomes convinced that the psychic is genuine.

* ''[[Monk]]'':

'''Vince''': It's not the same thing at all! It's not even close! }}

* This is the entire point of the classic ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' sketch "[http://www.hulu.com/watch/19190/saturday-night-live-robot-repair Robot Repair]."

* On an episode of ''[[Carnivale]]'', Stumpy did a spiel promising to show "the fearsome Man Eating Chicken." When the curtain was pulled aside, another carny was sitting at a table, eating... well, you can guess.

* An episode of ''[[Perfect Strangers]]'' has Larry and Balki trying to fix the plumbing in their apartment.

* On one episode of ''[[Mystery Science Theater 3000]]'', there was some discussion as to the meaning of the title of the movie: '''Teen-Age Strangler'''. There was a strangler, but it wasn't a teenager. And not all of the victims of the strangler were Teen-Age girls. So why is it titled Teen-Age Strangler?

* Jokes based on this are part of [[Aaron Sorkin]]'s [[Signature Style]].

'''C.J.:''' Yeah, well, I'm on dangling-modifier patrol.|''[[The West Wing]]''}}

* When Wesley first showed up on ''[[Angel]]'', he announced that he had become a rogue demon hunter. Cordelia's response: "What's a rogue demon?"

* In one of the Event sketches on ''[[That Mitchell and Webb Look]]'', the announcer introduces the contestants as "Peter, who you may remember; and Sheila, who you're also permitted to remember."

* Similar to the ''[[Mary Poppins]]'' example, on ''[[Open All Hours]]'':

* Paul Merton likes to use this trope on ''[[Have I Got News for You]]''. For example, when he was asked to complete the headline "(BLANK) flies off without warning", he suggested "Spider scares..." and "[[Bill Clinton|Clinton's...]]".

* In ''[[Blackadder Goes Forth]]'', Bob Parkhurst [[Sweet Polly Oliver|disguises herself as a man]] because she "want[s] to see how a war is fought so badly." Edmund informs her that she has come to the right place, as [[General Failure|the war is being fought very badly indeed]].

* '[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9H_cI_WCnE A one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater]'. This early (1950s!) music video makes it clear that the 'correct' interpretation was a one-eyed, one-horned, flying eater of purple people, but it's impossible to tell from the title of the song alone.

* [[Ray Stevens]]' "Little League":

Cuz the second that I nodded... HE HIT ME IN THE HEAD! }}

* [["Weird Al" Yankovic|Weird Al Yankovic]]'s "Jurassic Park" has the line "A huge Tyrannosaurus ate our lawyer/Well I suppose that proves/They're really not all bad." The ambiguity is whether the T-Rex isn't all bad, for disposing of a lawyer, or the lawyer isn't all bad, either for providing sustenance/another target, or in the "not un-tasty" sense. [http://www.weirdal.com/aaarchive.htm#1298 Al says] he left it ambiguous on purpose.

== Radio ==

* This, from an episode of ''[[Hello Cheeky]]''.

'''Barry:''' Well, that's no fun. }}

** Also:

'''Barry:''' However's a very silly name for an uncle! }}

* ''[[The Goon Show]]'' did a subversion of the old "when I nod my head, hit it" gag in the 1950s.

 

 

* In the RPG magazine ''Shadis'', there was a puzzle-filled scenario that at one point featured a sign saying "DANGER! Man eating flowers!" Following the path would lead the characters to, what else, a man who was eating flowers. {{spoiler|What many players would at this point fail to realize was that there was also danger.}}

* There's a famous story about the playtesting of the first [[Magic: The Gathering]] cards where a the Richard Garfield had this exchange:

Tester: I win every time I play it. *points to text* See it says 'target player loses next turn'. }}

 

** "Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana."

* ''[[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead]]'' is full of this. Possibly the best example:

'''Rosencrantz:''' Ah. }}

* In the play ''A Village Fable'', it's unclear whether the notorious Six-Fingered Man has three fingers on each hand or a total of 12.

* ''[[The Order of the Stick]]'' uses a similar garden-path sentence early on in its first arc: "When the goat turns red strikes true."

* Used cunningly in [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/stolen-pixels/5372-Stolen-Pixels-29-The-Letter-Home this] ''[[Stolen Pixels]]'', lampooning [[Tabula Rasa]]:

* The title of ''[[Demon Eater]]'' is another "both" example: Saturno is a demon who eats, and an eater of demons.

* In the Punyverse arc of ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'', after the transport that Torg and Riff are on leaves the planet, Lord Grater's men destroy the planet. Why? Because Lord Grater told them if any ship escaped the planet, they were to destroy it immediately. Cue [[Face Palm]].

* [[TV Tropes]] itself has a few, many of which are chronicled in "[[I Thought It Meant]]..." For example, a [[Serial Killer Killer]]: A killer of serial killers, or a serial killer of killers? ([[Take a Third Option|Both, more often then not]]).

** An example rightly documented in [[TV Tropes (Wiki)/Funny|TV Tropes]]:

Nope. I did it, too. As did my parents, Ayn Rand and God.|Your parents are Ayn Rand and God?}}

* The [[SCP Foundation]] has a "Six-Foot-Tall Man Eating Chicken." The SCP object is described as follows: "SCP-3467 is a six (6) foot tall, two hundred (200) pound man eating chicken. Subject is thirty five (35), slightly balding, dark brown hair and eyes, and slightly overweight. Name is Hank __________, and he has worked as a Level 1 cleanup crew for the past three years. Hank is never seen without a bucket of chicken, and only stops eating it when actually working, which is a rare occurrence in itself."

* ''[[Paddington]]'' has also done the "when I nod my head, you hit it" joke. To Paddington's credit, he does ask Mr. Curry if he's sure that's what he wants, but Mr. Curry just tells him to be quiet and do as he's told...

* From a ''[[House of Mouse]]'' short:

'''[[Goofy]]:''' What's the big hurry? We're not leavin' for eighty days.<br />

'''Mickey:''' ([[Aside Glance]].) }}

== Real Life ==

* Every trial attorney is taught the dangers of poorly chosen syntax with some variant of the following riposte by a cagey witness.

'''Witness''': [[Mathematician's Answer|Yes.]] }}

** While the opposing attorney could object to the question, a savvy attorney with a reliable witness will let it pass so the witness can get his jab in.

* '"I see," said the blind man.' Is he saying he understands, or that he is possessed of the sense of sight? If the latter, then he is a liar. A variation on the joke that continues in the same vein goes '"I see," said the blind man, as he picked up the hammer and saw.'

* This, encouraging the proper use of 'your' vs 'you're':

* A sign at a Souplantation (a all-you-can-eat, buffet-style restaurant in some areas of the U.S.) reads "Please eat all food on premises."

* A popular image on the internet is of a facebook post a man made because he was angry saying "Fuckin a man." His friends proceed to complement him on his guts to come out of the closet to the world. He doesn't get it.