April 23, 2007
Hurting people loved here
No, this isn't an example created by the Church Sign Generator -- it's the sign outside my neighborhood Baptist church (and polling place) in North Park.
In introductory linguistics courses we linguists often use the tired old "visiting relatives can be tedious" (or "boring", or "a pain", or what have you) as an example of a certain kind of ambiguity: are we talking about visiting our relatives, or are we taking about the relatives who visit us? I like the example on this church sign better: do my neighborhood Baptists love people who experience pain, or do they love people who cause others to experience pain? (Or: do they love acts that cause others to experience pain?)
All of God's children are presumably loved equally, but I'm fairly certain that the ambiguity of this example was not intentional. If it were, I'd expect to find more about it on the church's website -- it would be too clever to pass up.
[ Comments? ]
Posted by Eric Bakovic at April 23, 2007 01:01 PM