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What does "Red apples and bottles" mean?

The apples are red and the bottles are red too.
The apples are red but the color of the bottles is unknown.

Which one is right ?

tchrist
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Tim
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  • Wittgenstein would say that both are correct, depending on what you are trying to say. To say nothing of what Humpty Dumpty would say... –  Oct 29 '15 at 18:02
  • "I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am. I will not eat them in a box, I will not eat them with a fox. I will not eat them here or there, I will not eat them anywhere!" –  Oct 30 '15 at 17:24

4 Answers4

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It is perfectly ambiguous. If someone says "there are red apples and bottles in that box over there," one may have [red apples + bottles of any color] or [red apples + red bottles]. I don't even know a way to make a distinction with the tone of voice here; if you care to get more specific, you really have to say more words.

EDIT: upon further reflection, I think with tone of voice/speed you can say

red [slow] apples-and-bottles [fast] to imply both are red, whereas you can say red apples and bottles to imply that just the apples are red.

Written, it's 100% ambiguous.

hunter
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    red apples, [pause] and bottles. – CompuChip Oct 28 '15 at 14:35
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    @CompuChip: I'd say the comma is sufficient. It implies a small pause anyway and frankly this is one of the reasons why. :) – Lightness Races in Orbit Oct 28 '15 at 17:07
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    I've often seen signs on the beach that say, "No glass containers or animals." I often wondered how many people bring glass animals to the beach. They eventually changed it to, "No animals or glass containers", probably because they got tired of fielding wisecracks. –  Oct 28 '15 at 18:27
  • I was going to say that the order of the items could be reversed, but that has already been indirectly noted in the comment from @nocomprende. – shawnt00 Oct 28 '15 at 21:18
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    I wonder if other languages have this pitfall? It seems like it would be very awkward in the gendered languages... "What did you just call me?!?" –  Oct 29 '15 at 00:03
  • Doesn't the pause in speed translates to comma in written English? – Ejaz Oct 29 '15 at 06:44
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    In the case that only the apples are red, "bottles and red apples" is perfectly unambiguous. – Moriarty Oct 29 '15 at 07:26
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    @nocomprende Sure they have. The same sentence is completely ambiguous in Russian, and can be fixed by reversing the order as well. – tonytony Oct 29 '15 at 08:10
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    This is totally unambiguous in Lojban, BTW ;-) – John Dvorak Oct 29 '15 at 14:25
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit exactly. The written comma would mean a slight pause in the read sentence, making both unambiguous. – CompuChip Oct 29 '15 at 15:43
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    @JanDvorak: https://xkcd.com/191/ –  Oct 29 '15 at 18:01
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I would use a comma as in "Red apples, and bottles, were placed over.." for the case where bottles color is unknown, just to tell both cases apart, or either change the order of the subjects to avoid ambiguity

Whimusical
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    You should not use a comma after "bottles". Unnecessary commas are as bad as missing commas. – Todd Wilcox Oct 28 '15 at 12:41
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    Now that I look at it again, you shouldn't use either comma, since you are not making a list of three or more items. – Todd Wilcox Oct 28 '15 at 12:50
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    @Todd Both commas are perfectly fine; they aren't acting as a list separator, but rather indicating a parenthetical clause. Whether a parenthetical should be used or not in this case is a matter of style. – Sabre Oct 28 '15 at 13:30
  • @Sabre Parenthetical expressions contain non-essential information. Whether parenthetical commas are appropriate is more a matter of content than style, since whether the information offset in a parenthetical expression is essential or not is content-related. You can't just choose to make a phrase parenthetical because you think it sounds good. If you punctuate it parenthetically, you're communicating that the phrase can be ignored. – Todd Wilcox Oct 28 '15 at 13:36
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    Or: bottles and red apples. – CompuChip Oct 28 '15 at 14:35
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    @ToddWilcox: It's perfectly fine and clear. You're being too prescriptive. – Lightness Races in Orbit Oct 28 '15 at 17:08
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    @LightnessRacesinOrbit Perhaps you mean proscriptive? See: https://www.noslangues-ourlanguages.gc.ca/bien-well/fra-eng/ponctuation-punctuation/supprvirgules-delcommas-eng.html Especially "Restrictive Elements". – Todd Wilcox Oct 28 '15 at 17:10
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    @ToddWilcox: Yes, that. Put down your condescension stick for a moment. I know what a parenthetical means, and how it's normally used. None of that changes the fact that Whimusical's suggestion is perfectly fine, clear and appropriate. – Lightness Races in Orbit Oct 28 '15 at 17:23
  • @ToddWilcox The Oxford Style Manual (Chapter 5, section 5.3 Comma) favours the use of commas to reduce ambiguity. "Given that the final comma is sometimes necessary to prevent ambiguity, it is logical to impose it uniformly, so as to obviate the need to pause and gauge each enumeration on the likelihood of its being misunderstood – especially since that likelihood is often more obvious to the reader than the writer. (pp. 121–122)" – Easy Tiger Oct 29 '15 at 15:35
  • @EasyTiger I'm in favor of the Oxford Comma (which you reference). This is not that situation. – Todd Wilcox Oct 29 '15 at 16:51
  • @ToddWilcox I think it is. "Red apples and bottles" is a list, albeit a very short one. The three items convention isn't that there must be three items to have a comma, it's that you should use a comma when there are three items to reduce ambiguity. TBH, I'm looking through the updated style guidelines and they're less rigid even that that. – Easy Tiger Oct 29 '15 at 17:14
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit Any condescension is completely unintentional. It's hard to have tone of voice in writing. We disagree and we have our different views (along with their justifications and numbers of upvotes) recorded here for the edification of future English language learners. – Todd Wilcox Oct 29 '15 at 17:18
  • I downvoted this answer because using a parenthetical clause changes the meaning of the sentence. – Tom Church Oct 29 '15 at 21:40
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I would say that in most cases "red apples" is intended to be a multi-word unit, and therefore the color would only apply to the apples unless otherwise made clear by the context in previous or following statements that the color is intended to apply to both.

As stated in hunter's answer, it could also be made clear through tone and speed that it implies both - without that specific delivery, however, it would likely be assumed that "red" just applies to the apples. The reason for this is because you, as a listener, hear "red apples" first and create the expected multi-word unit, it already exists logically as "red apples" in your mind and the "and" and anything that follows now has no relationship to the color by the time you hear it.

This is specifically true in situations where the color (or other descriptor) is a common addition to the first word - we often say "red apples" or "green apples" to specify what kind of apple we're talking about. If you were to say "red cans and bottles" the intention would be more ambiguous absent other clues. If the items are particularly similar, then it would be more likely to mean both - "red glasses and bottles" probably means both the glasses and the bottles are red, but you can't be sure..

If you're trying to craft a more clear communication, if only the apples are red, it might be better to say "bottles and red apples", if they're all red then "red bottles and apples" might work (because now the multi-word unit kind of encompasses the whole phrase), but it's probably clearer to say "red apples and red bottles".

Jason
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If the bottes are of any colour, reverse the order to prevent ambiguity, i.e. "bottles and red apples". If the bottles were also red, repeat red, i.e. "red apples and red bottles".

Jackson
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