- Joined
- Nov 5, 2010
- Messages
- 39,958
The main subject is the bullet. It is somewhat ambiguous and not very well written, but if the fingerprints were on the box, not the bullet, then it is even more poorly written.
Yes, the subject is indeed the bullet - but the box is a prepositional object, and due to the structure of the statement, it is not clear which is the intended antecedent of the pronoun "it". That was sparebulb's whole point.
It is poorly written and ambiguous, period - not merely "somewhat" so.
I provided simple and unambiguous examples of how it could have been written in order to clearly convey either case.
[...] I think most people would read that and take it to mean the bullet had the fingerprints.
If you are counting on how you imagine "most people" will read something, but you still need to consult with holders of English degrees to verify your imagination, then you should consider the possibility that "most people" might not arrive at your interpretation, after all.
If you apply the logic of your interpretation of the "fingerprints" sentence consistently, then for a statement like "he put the flower in the wooden box with engravings of dolphins on it", you would have to say that "most people" would read that and take it to mean the flower (not the box) was engraved with dolphins (because the flower is the "main subject"). But that isn't the case. "Most people" understand that flowers are not typically engraved, while wooden boxes often may be. No such understanding exists with respect to the finding of fingerprints on bullets as opposed to finding them on boxes - fingerprints might just as easily be found on either. Hence, the confusion and ambiguity inherent in the "fingerprints" statement as it was constructed by the writer and allowed to stand by the editor(s).
The moral of this story is: Don't separate pronouns and their antecedents with chains of prepositional objects when any of those objects is reasonably susceptible to being interpreted as the antecedent.
Last edited: