Amusingly ambiguous antecedents

MathsManiac

Every once in a while, I hear a turn of phrase from a reporter on radio or TV, whereby a dodgily put together sentence has an unintended meaning that sends me into flights of fancy. Here's one I heard the other day in a report of what was in the day's newspapers:

"The Irish Examiner has a photo of a four-month-old child being pulled from rubble wrapped in a blanket".

Despite the unfortunate circumstances of the story, I couldn't help but start wondering why anyone would wrap rubble in a blanket. I missed the next few minutes of reporting, due to trying to come up with possible reasons for doing so.

This kind of unintended meaning arising from poor construction can often be quite funny, but I can never seem to remember them later. Anyone else heard any recently?

MathsManiac

Child alive, by the way, in case that wasn't obvious - it was a good-news story.

MathsManiac

Nearly the same kind of thing:

The story here:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0518/701956-victorino-chua-uk/
includes this:

"Among the evidence produced by the prosecution was a self-penned letter found at Chua's home in Stockport after his arrest."

I wonder about a "self-penned letter".
Logic seems to dictate that it should be something akin to this:
1.


But I guess it's one or other of these two:
2. a letter that you write to yourself
3. a letter that you yourself actually write.

Not a great term, I would have thought, since the meaning is not clear. If (2), then "self-addressed letter" would be much clearer, or just "a letter he wrote to himself", and if (3), it's a decidedly odd expression, since the default assumption should be that everyone writes their own letters. I'd only expect to see a reference to a self-penned letter with that meaning if there had previously been reference to some letters written on his behalf by someone else.

Pherekydes

I'm not sure if this goes here, but how and ever...

A Newstalk report on the recent Irish Open Golf concluded with the statement that the winning score had been the lowest in many years (since 1982). I immediately roared 'highest' at the radio. The winning score was -2; typical winning scores in golf would be −13, −14, −18, −15, −18 and so on.