I noticed that one of our recent stories made reference to a "large fruit drink supplier". Obviously that's a large supplier of fruit drinks, but wouldn't it be nice if the company only supplied large fruit drinks, or drinks made from large fruit? I'm thinking of something like this:
Using the word 'major' rather than 'large' would have been advisable - suppliers and fruit can both be 'large', but fruit is very rarely described as 'major'. And a hyphen between 'fruit' and 'drink' would have ruled out the 'large fruit' interpretation.
A large fruit drink supplier
Posted by
JD (The Engine Room)
on Thursday, 9 July 2009
Labels:
ambiguity,
large fruit drink supplier,
modal verbs,
raw copy
1 comment:
Yes, but we'd have lost the chance to enjoy the concept of LARGE fruit drinks. Or large fruit, puréed.
(Having just ordered some Maui Gold pineapple, and enjoyed it immensely, I'm made nostalgic by your pic)
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