Re: Clarity of Orders

I was leaning that way before, and on reflection I have concluded "to 
supports" is just ambiguous, both grammatically and dip-wise.  I  would say 
that "to support", on the other hand, is not, and can be part of a valid 
support order.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael D. Ashland" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, July 22, 2005 10:19 PM
Subject: Re: [CAT23-GM] Clarity of Orders


> Adam,
>
> Is English your first language? It may not be for the player in
> question, and the "s" on "supports" could be a typo. I'm not an English
> major by any stretch of the imagination, and only Libby knows for sure,
> but I would not rule these orders as ambiguous unless the player had
> been warned about this type of thing earlier in the game.
>
> I know there are "strict constructionists" out there, and that's one of
> the reasons we like human GM's around here.
>
> And for the record, I'm not trying to determine the player's intent. I
> do not care what his or her intent was. I'm taking a poorly written
> order, and deciding that it only has one possible meaning, using just my
> own particular brand of logic, in a case taken out of context, and with
> some circumstances assumed.
>
> Regards to all,
>
> Mike A.
>
> Adam Kuehn wrote:
>
>>Michael D. Ashland wrote:
>>
>>
>>>You are going to get opinions both ways, but "to" is a preposition, not
>>>a verb, and as such, the presence of the word "support(s)" (a transitive
>>>verb in this case) in the orders would settle the question in my mind.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Case 6 is an infinitive, read literally, so I can see how your
>>argument might hold there.  But I do not understand your willingness
>>to parse the phrase "to supports" down into its components and then
>>rule that "supports" is somehow more important because of which part
>>of speech it represents.  By itself, "to" has a clear meaning.
>>("[U]sed as a function word to indicate movement", if you want the
>>exact, pedantic phrase from Merriam-Webster online.)  By itself,
>>"supports" has an equally clear, but opposite, meaning.  Their
>>concatenation, "to supports", is grammatically nonsensical.
>>
>>I just don't see how the part of speech of the component words helps
>>you divine the intent of the person writing the order.  I'm not
>>trying to be overly picky, I'm just genuinely interested in hearing
>>why you think the part of speech helps, given that each word is
>>independently successful in conveying unambiguous meaning.
>>
>>In my view, as likely as not we are looking at a cut-and-paste error.
>>The player intended one thing at first, and then tried to cut in the
>>opposite thing but failed to delete the superceded material.  But
>>which material is to be superceded?  There's just no way to know.
>>
>>-Adam
>>
>>
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