3 ms·
It says "50 US States and Territories." The most natural parsing is that 50 entities are investigating, and some of those entities are states and some are terri
by lmkg 7y ago
It says "50 US States and Territories." The most natural parsing is that 50 entities are investigating, and some of those entities are states and some are territories. It's possible to parse it as saying all 50 states as well as (some) territories, although this phrasing would be awkward. If the former parsing is correct, then the number of states is less than 50, with the remainder being territories.
For the life of me, I cannot find anything in the article which lets me figure out who is actually investigating.
- mieseratte 7y ago> The most natural parsing is that 50 entities are investigating That's now how I parsed it at all. > For the life of me, I cannot find anything in the article which lets me figure out who is actually investigating. Perhaps we should find another source to corroborate instead of wildly speculating.
- cabaalis 7y agoThe confusion is that there are 50 states, and generally Americans do not know how many US territories there are. So "50 states" is understood as "all states," even though it could be 35 states and 15 territories for all we know. The 50 states part carries so much weight that one's mind may interpret it as "50 US States and X territories" with an implied X.