in the bloodiest apparent reprisal for ..

[Shinya Maki]

Hello everyone.

The passage below is from an article in today’s newspaper.

Do I understand that (A) + (B) = “in the bloodiest apparent reprisal for…” in the passage below?
(A) “in the bloodiest reprisal for …”
(B) “in an apparent reprisal for …”

In the bloodiest apparent reprisal for the attack on one of the holiest Shiite sites, men in police uniform seized 12 Sunni rebel suspects and killed 11of them.

Best regards,
Shinya Maki

[danmahaffey]

Hello everyone.

The passage below is from an article in today’s newspaper.

Do I understand that (A) + (B) = “in the bloodiest apparent reprisal for…” in the passage below?
(A) “in the bloodiest reprisal for …”
(B) “in an apparent reprisal for …”

In the bloodiest apparent reprisal for the attack on one of the holiest Shiite sites, men in police uniform seized 12 Sunni rebel suspects and killed 11of them.Yes.

News writers want to avoid uninformed judgments, so your writer did not want to say the attack was a reprisal, but rather an apparent reprisal. (Meaning: I could be wrong; it could have been an unprovoked attack, or a college prank, or an attack completely unrelated to the current political tensions. But mostly it means my editor doesn't want to be sued or attacked, either.)

By forcing the word apparent into the adjective phrase, bloodiest now must modifiy {apparent reprisal} in its entirety. It's an unfortunate phrase, because now the reader must imagine that there are many apparent reprisals, and that among them, this is the bloodiest. Who has been keeping track of these things?

A better phrasing would have been "In apparently the bloodiest reprisal for the attack...." This allows bloodiest reprisal to appear with full force, and still allows apparently to cover the reporter's official uncertainty.

[Temico]

Hello everyone.

The passage below is from an article in today’s newspaper.

Do I understand that (A) + (B) = “in the bloodiest apparent reprisal for…” in the passage below?
(A) “in the bloodiest reprisal for …”
(B) “in an apparent reprisal for …”

In the bloodiest apparent reprisal for the attack on one of the holiest Shiite sites, men in police uniform seized 12 Sunni rebel suspects and killed 11of them.

Best regards,
Shinya Maki

In the bloodiest apparent reprisal for the attack on one of the holiest Shiite sites, men in police uniform seized 12 Sunni rebel suspects and killed 11of them. = In an apparent reprisal, the bloodiest so far, for the attack on one of the holiest Shiite sites, men in police uniform seized 12 Sunni rebel suspects and killed 11of them

[danmahaffey]

In the bloodiest apparent reprisal for the attack on one of the holiest Shiite sites, men in police uniform seized 12 Sunni rebel suspects and killed 11of them. = In an apparent reprisal, the bloodiest so far,for the attack on one of the holiest Shiite sites, men in police uniform seized 12 Sunni rebel suspects and killed 11of themNice job, Temico.




PS--Way off topic, I believe reporters should stick to reporting and let others opine. I would have the reporter say, "Men in police uniform seized 12 Sunni rebel suspects today and killed 11 of them. General Xyz told us that this is a reprisal for the Sunni attack on one of the holiest Shiite sites, which occurred n days ago. Iraqi officials say this is the bloodiest so far. Roland Hedley reporting from El Amok."

If the reporter has no quote or interviews to back up his assertion, then he must not cover his own opinions with the word apparent. I'll get off my soapbox now.