Thursday, March 31, 2011

Free with oatmeal pump

Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion Fragrance Free with Oatmeal Pump
Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion Fragrance Free with Oatmeal Pump
We've been looking at syntactic ambiguity - you know, those perfectly grammatical sentences that can be read more than one way? "The cop saw the man with binoculars" kind of thing - and today I found a perfect example.

Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion Fragrance Free with Oatmeal Pump

One reading makes it seem as if you get "lotion fragance" "free with oatmeal pump" - that is, if you get the pump you get the fragrance of the lotion free - and the other that you get the whole thing - "Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Lotion" that is "Fragrance Free" and has an "Oatmeal Pump" - which is closer to the real reading. But not quite there.

And what the heck is an "oatmeal pump", anyway?

Hyphens, anyone? And commas?

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3 Comments:

At 12:09 PM, March 31, 2011 Blogger Jan had this to say...

Very confusing. But re "oatmeal pump": I think it's "Aveeno with Oatmeal" [in a] "Pump" [dispenser]. Oatmeal is/was an Aveeno signature ingredient, but I think there are non-oatmeal formulations now.

 
At 12:13 PM, March 31, 2011 Blogger Jan had this to say...

Or rather: "Fragrance Free with Oatmeal" [the composition], then "Pump" just describing the dispenser.

 
At 1:37 PM, March 31, 2011 Blogger The Ridger, FCD had this to say...

Yes, of course it is (as is clear from the picture). I was trying to be funny, hence the call for hyphens and commas...

 

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