Re: Modifiers by simile

On Monday 29 October 2007 10:35, Rick Harrison wrote:
> >However, this runs into
> >problems when a single noun, verb, pseudo-adjective, or pseudo-adverb has
> >more than one modifier, and I'm not sure how to get around it.
>
> Wouldn't a conjunction solve that problem? "truck color-of-apple and
> size-of-house"?
>
I thought about that, but consider this situation:
I want to say that a chair weighs as much as an industrial microwave oven and
is the color of wood (contrived example, I know, but bear with me).

So, I have "clock weight-of-microwave used-in-restaurant and color-of-wood"

To a listener, this is ambiguous: does "color-of-wood" modify "microwave"
or "clock"?

--
Kurt Weber
<kmw@...>