September 21, 2004

Garden paths at the Guardian

Perhaps it's only my new-world perspective, but this Guardian headline led me down not one, but two (and a half) garden paths:

French left torn in two in row over EU Constitution

First I pictured some poor French people, left torn in two. Maybe Chirac didn't get those hostages freed after all? But no, they were only left torn (though less drastically) two times in a row. No, wait a minute, it's the French political left. Who were torn in two metaphorically. And now I see, it's British row as in "spat".

Posted by Mark Liberman at September 21, 2004 05:50 AM