Consider this sentence:

Fat people eat accumulates.

Fat people eat what now? This sentence may seem like nonsense, but it is actually perfectly grammatical and sensible. It means that fat that is eaten by people tends to accumulate. But you probably misunderstood, because the sentence took you by the hand and led you down the garden path, to a dead end. Can you make sense of these other examples of syntactic ambiguity?

When I dressed the baby stayed in the playpen.

The old man the boat.

The man who hunts ducks out on weekends.

The horse raced past the barn fell.

We painted the wall with cracks.

The prime number few.

The man whistling tunes pianos.

The complex houses married and single students.

The girl told the story cried.

The management plans to cut vacation days are rejected.

Cake in your mouth doesn’t cake on your face.

I’ve convinced her children are noisy.

The florist sent the flowers was pleased.

An old buddy just dropped by his girlfriend was happy to see her.

And, saving the best for last…

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

More should be said about this example, which is the most humorous of garden path sentences. First of all, there is a modern addendum:

Amelia Earhart flies, like, a plane.

Second, “Time flies like an arrow” is a fantastic example of syntactic ambiguity, in that there are at least six possible interpretations of this short sentence:

• (You should) measure the speed of flies the way you would measure the speed of an arrow.
• (You should) measure the speed of flies the way an arrow would do so.
• (You should) measure the speed of flies that have similar qualities to an arrow.
• Time moves in the way an arrow would.
• Flying insects known as “time flies” enjoy an arrow.
• A copy of the magazine “Time,” when thrown, moves through the air the way an arrow would.

Do you have other examples of syntactic ambiguity? Share them in the comments below.