Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: This door is alarmed

I am much more worried by this notice, which now appears on many doors in
London. I think it must be American abuse of the language. I does not mean
that an alarm will sound if the door is used, but that the door is in a
state of alarm. Poor door.
Ciao,
Keith

il Fri, 30 Nov 2001 10:44:03 -0000, 
ke...@sykes54.freeserve.co.uk
 ha
scritto:

Lots of misplaced modifiers in English.
I believe New Scientist magazine has been having a readers' thread on
this very subject of misplaced modifiers. 
 Sadly, we too have "The door is alarmed" at our library. I'm always
tempted to draw an alarmed face on it. Maybe this weekend, while I'm
in charge... hehehe ... 
...then on the other hand... I'd like to keep my job. <damn> 
Cheers,
Loki
-- 
  Brevity is the soul of wit.    W.Shakespeare

Riporto ciò che ha scritto  e commento:

Ciao Keith,
anche in Italia, ormai, l'espressione ha preso piede e se ne è parlato 
più volte anche in Iclitaliano.
In molti aeroporti campeggia, ahimè, l'inquietante avviso: "Porta 
allarmata". Gasp.
P.
-- 
E' finalmente partita la RFD (Richiesta Formale di Discussione) 
relativa alla creazione di it.cultura.linguistica.francese. Se ne 
discute su it.news.gruppi

ke...@sykes54.freeserve.co.uk
 wrote:

You can blame us, we're blamed for most of the abuses of everything, so why
not this?
I think to say the door is in a state of alarm, it should say this door is
alarming.
Just kidding.
Rick
PS I've never seen this on an alarm-equipped door in the states.

 alarming.  
[snip]
That would imply the door is alarming to others. Not that it is
alarmed.


 
But Rick's one was a joke, wasn'it?
Max



I'm not sure. English grammar sure is ... :-)


 Max
Yes it was Max, thanks for noticing.
Rick

 wrote in message 3C17F14D...@wcom.com...



huh?  I think I know when I was making a joke, no matter how lame it was.
But onto the subject of the ng... better english, please take the
following comments as constructive criticism:
"What's, about ?"
doesn't mean anything.  Maybe you meant "What is that about?"
"I am always disposed to go up again but It is not joke."
I'm not sure what this means.  Maybe I cut too much out of the previous
posts and you are referring to
going up again to previous messages to discover the context of my reply.
So to make it very clear,
say "I am always disposed to go up again to previous posts" if that's what
you mean.  The phrase
"but It is not joke." I think refers to my response in a previous message,
which was indeed a joke.  So to
say it's not a joke when it clearly was (well to some of us) means either
that you were offended by it and
take issue with what I said, in which case you should say "but that was no
joke", or it means you think
the joke was so lame it doesn't qualify as humor for which you would say
"but that wasn't much of a joke".
"Let go up again my friends."
has no meaning at all.  "Let go" means to release something.  "Let's go"
means to proceed, maybe that's what you intended.
"Let go up" could mean to release something upwards, but you would need to
say "let it go up".  If you could release
something more than once, you could say "let it go up again".
Sorry if I've totally missed your meaning Orazio.
Rick