When I saw this story, I skimmed the first line, then got to the second, which read: "Hans Reiser has confessed to killing eight people unrelated to the case." It was a bit of a jolt. Then I went back and realized that it was referring to his wife's ex-lover, not to Reiser himself.
This is why you don't put a giant 10-word prepositional phrase between a subject and verb, especially if that phrase ends with something that could plausibly by a subject.
I couldn't help wonder what the 'spouse killer Hans Reiser' has been 'accused' of...terrible grammar, but I can't think of anything better...perhaps, '...Hans Reiser, accused of killing his wife,...' would be better.
Perhaps alleged wife killer would work better. Or maybe something entirely different -- Wired is running a story about Nina Reiser's ex-lover, who has confessed to killing eight people in a case unrelated to Ms. Reiser's. Nina Reiser, readers might recall, is the missing and presumed dead wife of Hans Reiser, a prominant open source filesystem developer who is currently on trial for her murder.
Crappy, I know... but at least it's a little less ambiguous. Of course, we can't expect professional editing o
"Because he's a character who's looking for his own identity, [He-Man is]
an interesting role for an actor."
-- Dolph Lundgren, "actor"
Bad line wrapping! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why you don't put a giant 10-word prepositional phrase between a subject and verb, especially if that phrase ends with something that could plausibly by a subject.
Re:Bad line wrapping! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Perhaps alleged wife killer would work better. Or maybe something entirely different -- Wired is running a story about Nina Reiser's ex-lover, who has confessed to killing eight people in a case unrelated to Ms. Reiser's. Nina Reiser, readers might recall, is the missing and presumed dead wife of Hans Reiser, a prominant open source filesystem developer who is currently on trial for her murder.
Crappy, I know... but at least it's a little less ambiguous. Of course, we can't expect professional editing o