[ExI] miscommunication (was: Yet another health care debate)

[Lee Corbin]

Damien writes

> Okay, I should apologize for my bad temper about all this. But look, John--

Indeed. Apparently I gave you an unwarranted apology, it might appear from
the below:

> Suppose someone wrote:
> 
> "Al Queda do sometimes blow up Americans, but we are trying to hunt 
> them down and kill them."
> 
> How likely is it that you'd think "them" referred to "Americans"? The 
> grammar is identical.

So *why* couldn't you see that you were just picking up
the wrong grammatical meaning? That's why I thought you
had to be kidding. John's sentence *was* ambiguous, and
in exactly the way I had thought, and the way I described.

(But you'll get no "Godawmighty! What nonsense is this?" 
out of me---for, still, I could be wrong.)

Lee