Forum: Author Hangout

The BBC

It might well be from the BBC, which allegedly refuses to call Hamas 'terrorists'.

AJ

Big Bad Company?

I used to watch the BBC World News because I thought they were neutral (unbiassed reporting). They are not.

I've only considered them to offer a different perspective. You are doing yourself a disservice if you only read one news source.

My thread has nothing to do with the subject of the article (Israeli-Hamas war). It was an example of a confusing sentence from an article (that happened to be on that subject).

With all the protests going on I almost didn't post it, but it was too good of an example of a confusing sentence that was grammatically correct not to.

You do realize this second sentence isn't clear either, don't you?

Who is injured?

That was my fault for posting only one sentence of the paragraph. The paragraph says the soldier shoots dead one militant and then another militant throws a grenade wounding the soldier. But even though the soldier is wounded, he charges the militant and kills him.

At least 10 years ago I heard an interview with an author who'd served in the OSS, behind enemy lines in Italy during WWII. He told an anecdote of being in Rome with Nazi soldiers everywhere and deciding, when he had to at some time walk on the street, to do so wearing his American uniform in public. He explained that if captured in uniform he'd be a POW but if caught out of uniform he'd be summarily executed.

On thing I'd check with this is the original source of the article. While the sentence is grammatically correct, if confusingly phrased, it's easier to make these sorts of convoluted constructions when translating from a language with very different grammar.

Excellent point(s) Dicrostonyx.

I often joke that I may be Missunderstood in more than 20 languages! Including my native English. Grammar and sentence structure suffer in many foreign languages I mangle; unless I am parroting "canned phrases" so, I can easily order coffee ☕ beer, food, catch a train, or a cab, or politely request you put down your weapon and I won't kill you 😄

Because I have to consider sentence structure when I am reading German, or French, which I do if not daily, at least weekly, as part of my military research; etc.

Thus I easily got the context of shoot (and) Kill but that also has to do with my background.

Earlier today I was speaking with a young veteran at college. He was a helicopter mechanic, I was Infantry, and we had different perspectives. Also, his native language is Korean, and we both have some hearing loss. Our having to restate certain comments adds perspective to this topic.

Our difference was about situational awareness. I am sure he would notice by sound and vibration potential faults in a mechanical system. He didn't quite get my keeping awareness of all the doors, and passersby, despite his having served in combat in Afghanistan.

Back to the OP, sentence structure in German, Korean, and English, are often different. I suspect that people who are multilingual, even if not fluent, might notice words and context more than others, since they are used to parsing meanings.

On thing I'd check with this is the original source of the article. While the sentence is grammatically correct, if confusingly phrased, it's easier to make these sorts of convoluted constructions when translating from a language with very different grammar.

One of the sources I looked at, a US English dictionary IIRC, listed examples of 'shoot dead' in the media. Most of them had the same 'garden path' nature. If that's a valid sample, ambiguous usage is more common than unambiguous.

In their first example, 'shoot dead' was quite different in concept: it was something like "... shoot dead white mice dosed with tranquilisers into the jungle for the snakes to eat ..."

AJ

A large majority of Israeli soldiers have only a few months service time. I would be more concerned about their ability to actually hit anything, especially the target, than in their ability to conserve ammo.

Speaking from ignorance, I thought all Israelis had to do national service to learn how to defend their country, after which they become reservists if they don't want to stay in the military. And Netanyahu activated the reservists. So they might not be the third best of the best of the best like US Marines, but they should have a working knowledge of where to aim the pointy end.

AJ

but they should have a working knowledge of where to aim the pointy end.

That statement doesn't even apply to regular soldiers who have several years service under their belts...

The issue here is the difference between theory and actuality. In theory they do a mandated minimum term of military service, but the question is 'What did they actually do' during that term. Not what they were supposed to do, what they actually did...

The problem is that often neither the students, nor the trainers are interested, and will often just 'tick the box' to say that training has been completed, when most often the trainers had been paralytically drunk and the students either stoned or asleep. This has been the case for most armies that rely on conscription of one form or the other.

Case in point, China, Taiwan and Russia. It's been well documented that there is (was-in in the case of Russia) a thriving black market, where with the passing of fiscal remuneration between one manual handling device to another, certain mandatory military service milestones can be expedited in a timescale in concordance to the amount in the manual handling exchange...

And it's not even confined to those military's with mandated military service. Mention the 'The Law of armed conflict' or simply JSP 383 to a member of the UK armed forces to elicit a groan of pain and find out how a large amount of people can manage to be in two places at once. Often with many, many miles between those two places...

I suspect Israelis have better motivation than most, with the perpetual threat of genocidal extinction. However your observations would seem to accurately describe the Russian reservists called up to fight in Ukraine.

But as I said, I'm speaking in ignorance :-(

AJ

Guns don't have a "pointy" end.

Actually, when you fit the bayonet, they do...

So the expression should be, "Don't point the blunty end at someone you're not prepared to shoot"? ;-)

AJ

The military version is usually closer to "Keep the barrel pointed where your eyes are looking!"

With the exception of situations, such as looking at a squadmate when passing on hand and arm signals.

Often in combat you will only get a fleeting glimpse of a target.

I am alive because enemy combatants had their muzzle pointed the wrong way, and I had been properly trained. Years of training that resulted in essential seconds... or less.