Giant runaway saw blade slices into Ohio house

[The Straight Story]

Giant runaway saw blade slices into Ohio house
Tuesday, April 20, 2010 10:10 AM

LORAIN, Ohio (AP) - A home security camera in Ohio has captured a construction mishap that could have been a lot worse.

Video from the camera shows a large blade spinning off a saw being used to cut through a street. The blade then rolled through a yard and ended up leaving a 3-foot gash in the side of an empty house in Lorain, 26 miles west of Cleveland.

Rachel Gayhart says she and her husband checked their video Monday to see why the street work wasn't finished. She says the blade missed a gas meter on the side of the neighboring house by only two feet.

The video shows a construction worker retrieving the runaway blade and putting it back on the saw.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/04/20/blade-runaway.html?type=rss&cat=&sid=101

[Iggo]

1. And it's not a cartoon?

Yikes!

[marmar]

26. You stole my thought !!!!

:spank:

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

30. Article failed to mention the anvil that fell on a construction worker's head. nt

[MadBadger]

2. This story changes a lot if you read it as, Giant Runaway, saw blade slices into Ohio House

which is what I did

[Ezlivin]

3. Saw V: The Rise of the Buckeyes

N/T

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

29. .

:spray:

[yellowcanine]

4. So the worker was just going to pretend it didn't happen? He didn't report it to his supervisor.

I am guessing his ass is grass now.

[raccoon]

5. Here's an example of how English can be difficult to understand, even for a native speaker, because

so many words can serve as different parts of speech:

"Giant runaway saw blade slices into Ohio house"

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/04/20/blade-runaway.html?type=rss&cat=&sid=101

I had to read the headline several times to understand it. Did a "giant runaway" see the blade...or what? Finally I get that "Giant runaway saw blade" is the subject.

[MicaelS]

6. Not difficult for me. I got it at once. n/t

[TransitJohn]

7. Easy, it's pretty intuitive

"Giant, runaway saw-blade slices into Ohio house"

[NoNothing]

8. Here's another:

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

[Codeine]

9. The conjugation of the verb

makes the sentence pretty clear.

[Lance_Boyle]

10. There is no reading of that phrase in which "Giant runaway" makes sense.

If a Giant Runaway was reporting the event, it would be "Giant Runaway: saw blade slices into Ohio house." Likewise, if a fictional television doctor was reporting the event it would be "Giant runaway saw blade slices into Ohio: House."

[NoSheep]

31. Giant fish saw smaller fish-eats it whole.

Giant runaway saw blade-slices house. "Then" is implied. That actually makes sense...it's poor form but it reads like a headline.

[kentuck]

11. Isn't that why we use commas??

........... , ............

[raccoon]

14. Yes, and there are no commas in that headline. nt

[ashling]

20. Commas,

I guess, they never thought, were necessary.

[Jim__]

12. An awful lot of what we say is ambiguous without us or our listeners realizing it.

It's fun to listen for these types of things at a meeting and then ask questions. It's amazing how many people have different ideas of what's just been said.

[meegbear]

13. Read this poem aloud and as fast as you can ...

Dearest creature in creation
Studying English pronunciation,
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse

I will keep you, Susy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye your dress you'll tear,
So shall I! Oh, hear my prayer,

Pray, console your loving poet,
Make my coat look new, dear, sew it!
Just compare heart, beard and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written).
Made has not the sound of bade,
Say said, pay-paid, laid, but plaid.

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as vague and ague,
But be careful how you speak,
Say break, steak, but bleak and streak.

Previous, precious, fuchsia, via,
Pipe, snipe, recipe and choir,
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, shoe, poem, toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery:
Daughter, laughter and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles.
Exiles, similes, reviles.

Wholly, holly, signal, signing.
Thames, examining, combining
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war, and far.

From "desire": desirable--admirable from "admire."
Lumber, plumber, bier, but brier.
Chatham, brougham, renown, but known.
Knowledge, done, but gone and tone,

One, anemone. Balmoral.
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel,
Gertrude, German, wind, and mind.
Scene, Melpomene, mankind,

Tortoise, turquoise, chamois-leather,
Reading, reading, heathen, heather.
This phonetic labyrinth
Gives moss, gross, brook, brooch, ninth, plinth.

Billet does not end like ballet;
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet;
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Banquet is not nearly parquet,
Which is said to rime with "darky."
Viscous, Viscount, load, and broad.
Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation's O.K.,
When you say correctly: croquet.
Rounded, wounded, grieve, and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive, and live,

Liberty, library, heave, and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven,
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the difference, moreover,
Between mover, plover, Dover,
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police, and lice.

Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label,
Petal, penal, and canal,
Wait, surmise, plait, promise, pal.

Suit, suite, ruin, circuit, conduit,
Rime with "shirk it" and "beyond it."
But it is not hard to tell,
Why it's pall, mall, but Pall Mall.

Muscle, muscular, gaol, iron,
Timber, climber, bullion, lion,
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, and chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor,

Ivy, privy, famous, clamour
And enamour rime with hammer.
Pussy, hussy, and possess,
Desert, but dessert, address.
Golf, wolf, countenance, lieutenants.
Hoist, in lieu of flags, left pennants.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rime with anger.
Neither does devour with clangour.

Soul, but foul and gaunt but aunt.
Font, front, won't, want, grand, and grant.
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say: finger.
And then: singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, age.
Query does not rime with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post; and doth, cloth, loth;
Job, Job; blossom, bosom, oath.
Though the difference seems little,
We say actual, but victual.

Seat, sweat; chaste, caste.; Leigh, eight, height;
Put, nut; granite, and unite.
Reefer does not rime with deafer,
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Dull, bull, Geoffrey, George, ate, late,
Hint, pint, Senate, but sedate.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific,

Tour, but our and succour, four,
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, guinea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria,

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean,
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion with battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, key, quay.
Say aver, but ever, fever.
Neither, leisure, skein, receiver.

Never guess--it is not safe:
We say calves, valves, half, but Ralph.
Heron, granary, canary,
Crevice and device, and eyrie,

Face but preface, but efface,
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust, and scour, but scourging,

Ear but earn, and wear and bear
Do not rime with here, but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew, Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, clerk, and jerk,
Asp, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation--think of psyche--!
Is a paling, stout and spikey,

Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing "groats" and saying "grits"?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel,
Strewn with stones, like rowlock, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict, and indict!
Don't you think so, reader, rather,
Saying lather, bather, father?

Finally: which rimes with "enough"
Though, through, plough, cough, hough, or tough?
Hiccough has the sound of "cup."
My advice is--give it up!

[raccoon]

16. Which is why we need to simplify English spelling.

Never seen the poem--thanks!

[zorahopkins]

15. I Hope The Members of The Ohio House Are OK

I'm just glad the giant runaway saw blade didn't slice into the Ohio Senate.

Who will have to pay for the damage to the Ohio Capitol?

[Fumesucker]

17. Seems fairly clear to me if a bit strange..

But then I've run a 46" saw blade before that would have sliced a house no problem..

[anarch]

18. well, the grammar's a bit poor

but what I'm getting is that a giant runaway saw Blade slice into a house in Ohio...which I can only assume was full of vampires.

[fishwax]

24. "slices" would have to be "slice" if "giant runaway" were the subject

But when a phrase hits you a specific way initially, it's often difficult to break out of that framework.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. Headlines are a separate type of English

that sacrifice comprehensibility for shortness and impact. They leave out articles (anyone speaking would say "a giant runaway blade", and "an Ohio house"), and they use tenses in an unusual way (if you were telling someone what happened, you'd say sliced, but the headline uses the present, apparently in the hope that the reader will feel more involved in the story, as if they are seeing it for themselves right now, and the headline is a commentator, rather than being told about it later).

Most of all, headline writers want to fit as much of the story into the few letters they have available as they can, so they make every word get something across, and the headines are read without supplying either emphasis or context. If a newsreader said that on TV, as in "coming up: giant runaway saw blade slices into Ohio house", you'd understand it - there'd be emphasis on 'gi-', 'run-', and 'saw', then a tiny pause after 'blade', which helps mark that off as a phrase. If the subject had been 'giant runaway' and the verb 'saw', which I presume is what you were trying to think of, with a subsidiary clause with 'blade' as its subject, then 'saw' wouldn't have that emphasis, and there'd be a pause before it.

If this had been a real sentence inside proper written prose, then the context would help get the meaning across, even if the writer can't use emphasis. But headlines don't give you that (I do wonder why you read the headline several times, rather than starting to read the story which would have made it clear, though).

Headlines, like Twitter messages and telegrams, are a hurried form of English.

[Arugula Latte]

19. And then an anvil fell on the construction worker.

And then the emergency worker put Acme flares in the road but they were really dynamite.

[chrisa]

22. Wylie Coyote noooooo!!!!

[MilesColtrane]

21. Holy Crap!

That's like something out of a "Final Destination" movie.

[skypilot]

23. Shit!!!!

I always thought that it was irrational of me to fear the blade shooting out at me whenever I'd pass some construction worker using one of those things. I'd feel a bit like an idiot running past the guy. Not anymore. Now I have to worry about this shit for real.

[Cirque du So-What]

25. I didn't interpret 'giant runaway' any differently from how the reporter intended it

Now if it had mentioned a 'runaway giant,' I might have formed a different mental image.

I take exception to the word 'sliced,' however, as I associate that word with a back-and-forth action with a knife. The runaway sawblade SAWED into the house - redundancy be damned!

[muriel_volestrangler]

28. I'd associate the verb 'to saw' much more with a back-and-forth action than 'to slice'

The fundamental idea of 'slice' is division - so a slice is something that has been divided off. You can slice vegetables without going back and forth - you just need a sharp knife. Saws, on the other hand, have been designed to go back and forth for hundreds of years, and it's only with the invention of motors that a rotary saw that doesn't go back and forth has been possible. A seesaw is a toy that goes back and forth, without doing any cutting at all.

[kwassa]

32. reminds me of "panda eats shoots and leaves"