Today's newspaper flub

[deckardcanine]

From a review of For Colored Girls:

It's hard to imagine that any self-respecting man would want to sit through two hours -- let alone two minutes -- of such caustic man bashing.

Switch "hours" and "minutes" and it makes sense. Otherwise, it sounds like two hours would be more tolerable than two minutes.

Comments

[nefaria.livejournal.com]

From CNN - "rape, abuse and back-alley abortions are among the subjects touched on"

No thanks, if I want to be depressed, I'll read the newspapers.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

The review I cited ends by saying it makes Precious look like Pollyanna. Nevertheless, my office mate (a Jamaican woman, FWIW) is eager to see it.

[billis.livejournal.com]

To me, it seems to make sense either way. The first clause assumes that a man has a choice to take-or-leave 2 hours of the movie, then 'let alone' suggests "not to mention whether he would chose to go for two minutes if offered that choice".

I think that which way you parse it depends on whether you choose to read it as a question or not. As a question, the 2mins followed by 2 hours format seems better to me. As a statement, the way it's formatted seems to express the thought.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Maybe, but this is the first time I've seen it this way. At best, there's not much of a tradition going for it.

[thatcatgirl.livejournal.com]

Alternately, maybe after a few minutes you get numb to it. :P

[mwalimu.livejournal.com]

I agree, the reversal of the two words makes more sense to me. I think some people just get the meaning of certain expressions backwards. My ex-wife used to use the phrase "lucked out" the opposite of how I'd always used it and heard it used, and it threw me whenever she said it that way. (To me, "lucked out" = "got lucky"; to her, "lucked out" = "got unlucky".)

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on "lucked out," but there is some sense to her idea, as it comes close to "out of luck" or "my luck ran out."