History Main / AmbiguousSyntax

* There's a SciFi web novel in which a linguist intentionally uses an extremely ambiguous sentence to determine whether she's talking to an actual person or a mere syntax engine.

-->Perry: I want you to picture a bullet inside your head right now. Can you do that for me?
-->Orderly: Fuck you. Anyway, that's ambiguous.
-->Perry: Ambiguous? No, I don't think so.
-->Harry: No, I think what he means is that when you say 'Picture it inside your head' okay is that that a bullet will be inside your head? Or picture it IN your head?
-->Perry: Harry, will you shut up?
-->Harry: Well, he's got a point.

** Actually, that's a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence garden path sentence]]. The meaning of the sentence isn't ambiguous unless you postulate that a "barn fell" is a noun - "A horse, being raced past the barn, fell." However, the apparent meaning of the sentence is different when the entire sentence is parsed as opposed to when the last word is left out.

TheOtherWiki lists more examples [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sentences here]].

* ''Clue'':

<<|LanguageTropes|>>
<<|ThisMightBeAnIndex|>>

* An episode of ''PerfectStangers'' has Larry and Balki trying to fix the plumbing in their apartment.
-->'''Larry:'''(holding pipe) Now, when I nod my head, you hit it with the hammer.

** [[LesYay Lesbian humans]] who kill [[EvilIsSexy lesbian vampires]], then [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie turn out to have become vampires right as the final battle starts]] would be, in the immortal words of [[TheIncredibles Boy On Tricycle]], "...[[RuleOfCool wicked awesome]]!" (though a grammatically accurate title ''would'' give away the entire story).

* In a GrailQuest 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.

* In an episode of ''[[http://www.tv.com/the-latest-buzz/show/75041/summary.html 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}}:

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

[[AC:VideoGames]]
* An InteractiveFiction game called ''[[http://www.wurb.com/if/game/484 The Six-Foot-Tall Man Eating Chicken]]''.
* When someone was talking about Troll Hunters in the ''{{Warcraft}} III'' preview days, I remember some aspiring journalist noting that "We don't know if they are orcs who hunt trolls or trolls that hunt." or some such.

[[AC:Puzzles]]
* "In Kansas, you cannot take a picture of a man with a wooden leg. Why?" Answer: [[spoiler:You can't take a picture of a man with a wooden leg anywhere, you have to use a camera!]]

* Completely and utterly averted by every single programming language ever invented. The reason for this is that while humans may be able to deduce which of multiple meanings is correct for a given situation, a computer cannot do the same, so all languages for computers are specifically designed to be completely unambiguous.
** Except in some cases of polymorphism or inheritance, especially when done in tricked out versions of non-object-oriented languages such as C. Sometimes code will compile perfectly correctly and then the program will crash or produce an incorrect outcome because a crucial variable was interpreted as the wrong type. Not even computers are immune.
** It's more common than you think. "int a=0xDEAD-0xFACE; int b=0xFACE-0xDEAD;" is a C/C++ construct that fails to compile on the second declaration, and you won't notice it until you run compilation. There's also the case of "i=i++ ", but that's officially declared a NasalDemon. Poorly defined languages may also suffer from this as well.

-->Colonel Mustard: Wadsworth, am I right in thinking there's nobody else in this house?
-->Wadsworth: Um... no.
-->Colonel Mustard: Then there is someone else in this house?
-->Wadsworth: Sorry, I said "no" meaning "yes."
-->Colonel Mustard: "No" meaning "yes?" Look, I want a straight answer, is there someone else, or isn't there, yes, or no?
-->Wadsworth: No.
-->Colonel Mustard: No there is, or no there isn't?
-->Wadsworth: Yes.
-->Mrs. White: [shatters glass] PLEASE!

* BoyMeetsWorld:

* 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]]."

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

* Completely and utterly Averted by every single programming language ever invented.
** The reason for this is that while humans may be able to deduce which of multiple meanings is correct for a given situation, a computer cannot do the same, so all languages for computers are specifically designed to be completely unambiguous.
** Except in some cases of polymorphism or inheritance, especially when done in tricked out versions of non-object-oriented languages such as C. Sometimes code will compile perfectly correctly and then the program will crash or produce incorrect outcome because a crucial variable was interpreted as the wrong type. Not even computers are immune.

*** I saw that movie, and it ''was'' [[RuleOfCool wicked awesome]].

** Better than being a human sperm-bank, though... [insert obligatory Paris Hilton reference].
* Panda: ''[[EatsShootsAndLeaves Eats, shoots and leaves]]''.
** Actually, that's not ambiguous. The intended meaning ("Eats shoots and leaves") is incompatible with the punctuation. Which is the point.

* 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]].

* Another ambiguous headline featuring this trope: "Man Eating Piranha Accidentally Sold as Pet Fish". Actually, probably most ambiguous headlines would qualify, depending on how loosely we define the trope. They're even more vulnerable to it than normal sentences due to omitting lots of grammatical features.
** The professionals call these [[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2407 crash blossoms]].

* This troper saw a comic strip somewhere with a guy charging money to see a "Man Eating Chicken". Surprise, surprise, after the people had paid, they just ended up seeing an ordinary guy on a stage eating fried chicken from a bucket.

** An aversion, actually- there's only one grammatical interpretation with no punctuation, it's just hard to work out.
** No, there are other interpretations, such as "There was a fell horse, and it raced past the barn" and "There was a fell barn, and a horse raced past it". And the "correct" interpretation relies on accepting that "The horse raced past the barn fell" is valid shortening of "The horse ''that was'' raced past the barn fell".

* In ''TheTick'' episode in Europe, Tick encounters the two Fortissimo Brothers, who, is told, have the strength of 10 men. He then asks, "Is that five men each or 20 all together?"

* The ''MaryPoppins'' reference reminds me of this old lateral thinking puzzle: "In Kansas, you cannot take a picture of a man with a wooden leg. Why?" Answer: [[spoiler:You can't take a picture of a man with a wooden leg anywhere, you have to use a camera!]]

* ''LesbianVampireKillers'': 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 the third option.

* The movie ''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0271367/ Eight Legged Freaks]]'' drew comments for omitting the hyphen from the title, which would indicate that it's about freaks with eight legs, not eight freaks with legs.
** Correct me if I am wrong, but I've heard Americans generally don't use or understand hyphens, hey?
** Your comment (the first one) is even more ambiguous. At first I read it as "(omitting the hyphen, which would indicate that it's about freak with eight legs)", which doesn't make sense, because omitting the hyphen caused it to be ambiguous. But you actually meant, "omitting (the hyphen, which indicate...)", wherein the hyphen indicates that "eight" and "legged" go together. Ideally you would have drawn some kind of diagram instead. So in summary, although some people don't understand hyphens, I do, and I happen to live in the US, but I did not understand your comment immediately. Because you wrote it all wrong.