I love the genre of found sentences that illustrate the importance of punctuation in written English (or tone in spoken English) to determine the meaning. There was, for example, the description of a documentary film about Merle Haggard, informing us that “among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall.” And the too-good-to-check book dedication “This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.”
Anyway, today’s Guardian recounts the racist text message that may have inspired the recent firing of Tucker Carlson, and then proceeds to discuss the sexual harassment suit by a former producer on Carlson’s show, quoting the network as having said
We will vigorously defend Fox against all of her legal claims which have no merit.
Which immediately suggests that many of her legal claims do have merit, and they are planning to offer only a token defense against those. Possibly they meant to say “We will vigorously defend Fox against all of her legal claims, which have no merit.” It’s not clear whether Fox “said” this in writing, in which case it’s all on them, or orally, in which case the Guardian is being, at the very least, a bit mischievous.
Common Infirmities 