6 ms·

I originally parsed this as "[B.C Woman = Woman from Before Christ] [buried = laid to rest] in [Amazon = rainforest].....packages she did not ask for" and REALL

I originally parsed this as "[B.C Woman = Woman from Before Christ] [buried = laid to rest] in [Amazon = rainforest].....packages she did not ask for" and REALLY had to re-read it carefully.

ke88y 3y ago
Same. I sometimes wonder if in these cases it's a cultural/not-intended-audience thing (USA brain vs CAD brain top-1 expansion of B.C.), or objectively bad writing, or intentional.
- brailsafe 3y ago
  Probably a cultural thing. As a resident of B.C I parsed that bit intuitively, but the "buried in" bit seemed like some sort of literal warehouse mishap, because we do have at least 1 fulfillment center here. I wouldn't expect anyone outside of the Pacific Northwest or Canada to read it as British Columbia.
  - skissane 3y ago
    > I wouldn't expect anyone outside of the Pacific Northwest or Canada to read it as British Columbia. I’ve lived in Australia my whole life, never been to Canada, etc - and yet I immediately assumed “B.C” meant “British Columbia”. It just seemed like the most likely expansion in the context (looks like a news headline, posted on a North American website). Although a bit like you, my initial parse of the sentence was that she was crushed to death in a warehouse accident, it took me a couple of seconds to realise it was more likely meant figuratively
    - brailsafe 3y ago
      Australia and B.C do have somewhat of a kinship though
      - skissane 3y ago
        > Australia and B.C do have somewhat of a kinship though It is true that Australians and Canadians find themselves to have certain things in common, both being former dominions of the British Empire – but that doesn't mean that Canadian provinces have particularly strong salience for Australians. Australians consume a lot more American media than Canadian media; and the US is a significantly more popular travel destination. I have a much better idea of the difference between New York and Florida than the difference between British Columbia and Ontario – I've been to both New York and Florida, as I said I still haven't got around to visiting Canada; even before I'd ever been to either, I'd watched countless TV shows and movies set in both, and that gave me a certain image of both in my head (and actually experiencing them in person wasn't hugely different from my pre-existing mental image). I think of Canadian provinces, and my mental images are a lot vaguer. I think that's generally true – the average Australian, if their idea of US geography is somewhat patchy, their idea of Canadian geography is likely to be a lot patchier.
        jknutson 3y ago
        I think he’s being more specific about the kinship between aussies and those in the lower mainland. I live in Vancouver, and I know exactly what this guys talking about when it comes to Aussies— drive up to Whistler (a nearby ski/snowboard/party town in the mountains) and you’ll be amazed at how many Australian accents you hear. It’s like Little Melbourne up there, my brother used to work the bars/restaurant scene up there, more than half of his coworkers at multiple jobs he had up there were aussies. I don’t expect that Australians hold a bond with Canada at large, I can’t very well imagine any of the Aussies I’ve met having a fond place in their hearts for Calgary or even the rest of Canada (read: Toronto, Montreal).
        skissane 3y ago
        I find it totally believable there are lots of Australians in some parts of BC. I just can't remember hearing it before. Now I think about it, years ago, I did hear something about Australians working in the Canadian ski industry, and I suppose that probably was in BC. But I've never really been into skiing, so the information didn't make much of an impression on me. So I doubt that's got anything to do with my immediate understanding of "B.C. woman..." as being a reference to British Columbia. Also, one of my aunts (by marriage) is Canadian, and if I remember right she grew up in BC. But I've never been particularly close to her, and I haven't seen or spoken to her in years. So I'm sceptical that has anything to do with it either.
- Lio 3y ago
  It definitely is a cultural thing. I initially read it the same way. I get equally thrown when I read about Victorians doing something modern in news from Australia. Or that a Cork man drowned in news from Ireland. There’s just a brief WAT? moment before your brain switches to the correct connect.
kevinlinxc 3y ago
My first thought as someone from B.C. was "oh man people are gonna read this wrong"
kjhughes 3y ago
It's a garden-path sentence [1]. Garden-path sentences have ambiguous parses that typically require backtracking to correct earlier misinterpretations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
- windowshopping 3y ago
  I didn't know there was a name for this, thanks!
  - tialaramex 3y ago
    In the particular case of headlines, where this arises more often thanks to their need for brevity at the cost of clarity, linguists sometimes call these "Crash blossoms" from the naming example "Violinist linked to JAL crash blossoms".
  - rbonvall 3y ago
    Not only a name, there's also an xkcd! https://xkcd.com/2793/ https://xkcd.com/2793/
    - mnemotronic 3y ago
      After reading that my brain will never be the same if I remember it though it's not guaranteed at my age.
    - windowshopping 3y ago
      Oh wow that took some serious effort and help from explainxkcd to make any sense of.
      - sundvor 3y ago
        Did you have caps lock enabled? :-) "xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS at a screen resolution of 1024x1. Please enable your ad blockers, disable high-heat drying, and remove your device from Airplane Mode and set it to Boat Mode. For security reasons, please leave caps lock on while browsing."
RRWagner 3y ago
Likewise.. I expected a burial site with the accomanying artifacts that somehow they knew that woman would never really want in the afterlife.
raincole 3y ago
It's funny, but it's also a bit sad that my first thought when reading "Amazon" is the company instead of the rainforest.
- userbinator 3y ago
  This might be a bit more specific to those working in the industry, but I remember seeing an article here whose title started with "Amazon Rainforest" and thought it was another AWS offering before reading the rest of it.
ChristianGeek 3y ago
I thought she was literally buried in Amazon packages in a dismemberment kind of way. I watch too many true crime videos on YouTube.
- PNewling 3y ago
  That was my first read as well.
joe__f 3y ago
This was exactly my reading also
BrandoElFollito 3y ago
I am not a native speaker (French) and was taught British English at school. This came with sentences where the order of words was very different from French. We had stuff like "this is the thing you have been looking for", with the sentence ending with "for". This forced us to parse sentences with great care to understand them and we were usually fine only after the final word. Same with Latin. This is to say that this title was surprisingly clear to me immediately after the first reading :) (if a French is reading this - that was in the times when we were looking for Brian who was in the kitchen, and Jenny who was elsewhere but I do not remember where. They also had a cat)
- dgellow 3y ago
  (Swiss-French here who grew up with French speaking media. IIRC Jenny was in the bathroom)
  - BrandoElFollito 3y ago
    You are right! https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Practical/Your-Questions/Why-is-Bryan-in-the-kitchen https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Practical/Your-Quest...
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > We had stuff like "this is the thing you have been looking for", with the sentence ending with "for". To misquote Winston Churchill for the joke: "Ending sentences with a preposition is a thing up with which I will not put."
cubefox 3y ago
I thought she was burying packages she didn't want.

I originally parsed this as "[B.C Woman = Woman from Before Christ] [buried = laid to rest] in [Amazon = rainforest].....packages she did not ask for" and REALLY had to re-read it carefully.

ke88y 3y ago

Same. I sometimes wonder if in these cases it's a cultural/not-intended-audience thing (USA brain vs CAD brain top-1 expansion of B.C.), or objectively bad writing, or intentional.

brailsafe 3y ago
Probably a cultural thing. As a resident of B.C I parsed that bit intuitively, but the "buried in" bit seemed like some sort of literal warehouse mishap, because we do have at least 1 fulfillment center here. I wouldn't expect anyone outside of the Pacific Northwest or Canada to read it as British Columbia.
- skissane 3y ago
  > I wouldn't expect anyone outside of the Pacific Northwest or Canada to read it as British Columbia. I’ve lived in Australia my whole life, never been to Canada, etc - and yet I immediately assumed “B.C” meant “British Columbia”. It just seemed like the most likely expansion in the context (looks like a news headline, posted on a North American website). Although a bit like you, my initial parse of the sentence was that she was crushed to death in a warehouse accident, it took me a couple of seconds to realise it was more likely meant figuratively
  - brailsafe 3y ago
    Australia and B.C do have somewhat of a kinship though
    - skissane 3y ago
      > Australia and B.C do have somewhat of a kinship though It is true that Australians and Canadians find themselves to have certain things in common, both being former dominions of the British Empire – but that doesn't mean that Canadian provinces have particularly strong salience for Australians. Australians consume a lot more American media than Canadian media; and the US is a significantly more popular travel destination. I have a much better idea of the difference between New York and Florida than the difference between British Columbia and Ontario – I've been to both New York and Florida, as I said I still haven't got around to visiting Canada; even before I'd ever been to either, I'd watched countless TV shows and movies set in both, and that gave me a certain image of both in my head (and actually experiencing them in person wasn't hugely different from my pre-existing mental image). I think of Canadian provinces, and my mental images are a lot vaguer. I think that's generally true – the average Australian, if their idea of US geography is somewhat patchy, their idea of Canadian geography is likely to be a lot patchier.
      - jknutson 3y ago
        I think he’s being more specific about the kinship between aussies and those in the lower mainland. I live in Vancouver, and I know exactly what this guys talking about when it comes to Aussies— drive up to Whistler (a nearby ski/snowboard/party town in the mountains) and you’ll be amazed at how many Australian accents you hear. It’s like Little Melbourne up there, my brother used to work the bars/restaurant scene up there, more than half of his coworkers at multiple jobs he had up there were aussies. I don’t expect that Australians hold a bond with Canada at large, I can’t very well imagine any of the Aussies I’ve met having a fond place in their hearts for Calgary or even the rest of Canada (read: Toronto, Montreal).
        skissane 3y ago
        I find it totally believable there are lots of Australians in some parts of BC. I just can't remember hearing it before. Now I think about it, years ago, I did hear something about Australians working in the Canadian ski industry, and I suppose that probably was in BC. But I've never really been into skiing, so the information didn't make much of an impression on me. So I doubt that's got anything to do with my immediate understanding of "B.C. woman..." as being a reference to British Columbia. Also, one of my aunts (by marriage) is Canadian, and if I remember right she grew up in BC. But I've never been particularly close to her, and I haven't seen or spoken to her in years. So I'm sceptical that has anything to do with it either.
Lio 3y ago
It definitely is a cultural thing. I initially read it the same way. I get equally thrown when I read about Victorians doing something modern in news from Australia. Or that a Cork man drowned in news from Ireland. There’s just a brief WAT? moment before your brain switches to the correct connect.

kevinlinxc 3y ago

My first thought as someone from B.C. was "oh man people are gonna read this wrong"

kjhughes 3y ago

It's a garden-path sentence [1]. Garden-path sentences have ambiguous parses that typically require backtracking to correct earlier misinterpretations. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

windowshopping 3y ago
I didn't know there was a name for this, thanks!
- tialaramex 3y ago
  In the particular case of headlines, where this arises more often thanks to their need for brevity at the cost of clarity, linguists sometimes call these "Crash blossoms" from the naming example "Violinist linked to JAL crash blossoms".
- rbonvall 3y ago
  Not only a name, there's also an xkcd! https://xkcd.com/2793/ https://xkcd.com/2793/
  - mnemotronic 3y ago
    After reading that my brain will never be the same if I remember it though it's not guaranteed at my age.
  - windowshopping 3y ago
    Oh wow that took some serious effort and help from explainxkcd to make any sense of.
    - sundvor 3y ago
      Did you have caps lock enabled? :-) "xkcd.com is best viewed with Netscape Navigator 4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in Javascript on an Apple IIGS at a screen resolution of 1024x1. Please enable your ad blockers, disable high-heat drying, and remove your device from Airplane Mode and set it to Boat Mode. For security reasons, please leave caps lock on while browsing."

RRWagner 3y ago

Likewise.. I expected a burial site with the accomanying artifacts that somehow they knew that woman would never really want in the afterlife.

raincole 3y ago

It's funny, but it's also a bit sad that my first thought when reading "Amazon" is the company instead of the rainforest.

userbinator 3y ago
This might be a bit more specific to those working in the industry, but I remember seeing an article here whose title started with "Amazon Rainforest" and thought it was another AWS offering before reading the rest of it.

ChristianGeek 3y ago

I thought she was literally buried in Amazon packages in a dismemberment kind of way. I watch too many true crime videos on YouTube.

PNewling 3y ago
That was my first read as well.

joe__f 3y ago

This was exactly my reading also

BrandoElFollito 3y ago

I am not a native speaker (French) and was taught British English at school. This came with sentences where the order of words was very different from French. We had stuff like "this is the thing you have been looking for", with the sentence ending with "for". This forced us to parse sentences with great care to understand them and we were usually fine only after the final word. Same with Latin. This is to say that this title was surprisingly clear to me immediately after the first reading :) (if a French is reading this - that was in the times when we were looking for Brian who was in the kitchen, and Jenny who was elsewhere but I do not remember where. They also had a cat)

dgellow 3y ago
(Swiss-French here who grew up with French speaking media. IIRC Jenny was in the bathroom)
- BrandoElFollito 3y ago
  You are right! https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Practical/Your-Questions/Why-is-Bryan-in-the-kitchen https://www.connexionfrance.com/article/Practical/Your-Quest...
JohnFen 3y ago
> We had stuff like "this is the thing you have been looking for", with the sentence ending with "for". To misquote Winston Churchill for the joke: "Ending sentences with a preposition is a thing up with which I will not put."

cubefox 3y ago

I thought she was burying packages she didn't want.