Amphiboly Funnies

[Jetta Windstar]

I've got an hour to kill and thought I'd post some random stuff while I had time. I will copy some amphibolies (why does Firefox say it's spelled wrong?) from some a random worksheet my professor in my Logic gave us. They are amphibolies from various articles or sub headings from magazines/news papers, etc. Amphibolies, for those that don't know what they are, are 'syntactically (or structurally) ambiguous', meaning a reader can interpret them in more than one way. They are a type of informal fallacy.

Funny examples:

• "Drunk Gets Nine Months In Violin Case"
  
• "Farmer Bill Dies In House"
  
• "Iraqi Head Seeks Arms"
  
• "Prostitutes Appeal to Pope"
  
• "British Left Waffles on Falkland Islands"
  
• "Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms"
  
• "Teacher Strikes Idle Kids"
  
• "Enraged Cow Injures Farmer With Axe"
  
• "Miners Refuse To Work After Death"
  
• "Stolen Painting Found By Tree"
  
• "Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years In Checkout Counter"
  
• "Never Withhold Herpes Infection From Loved One"
  
• "Kids Make Nutritious Snacks"
  
• "Lansing Residents Can Drop Off Trees"
  
• "Local High School Dropouts Cut In Half"
  
• "Hospital Sued By Seven Foot Doctors"
  
• "New Vaccine May Contain Rabies"
  
• "Include Your Children When Baking Cookies"

Some other amphibolies:

• "The president of our college has promised to stop drinking on campus. Apparently the president has a drinking problem."
  
• "The ad for Ajax house cleaning service reads: "Never clean again." Obviously you should never hire that service, because your house will never be clean again."
  
• "George said that he was interviewing for a job drilling oil wells in the supervisor's office. We can only conclude that the supervisor must have an awfully dirty office."