Garden-path sentence

Uncommon card · No. 105864

A garden-path sentence is a grammatically correct sentence that starts in such a way that a reader's most likely interpretation will be incorrect; the reader is lured into a parse that turns out to be a dead end or yields a clearly unintended meaning. Garden path refers to the saying "to be led down [or up] the garden path", meaning to be deceived, tricked, or seduced. In A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), Fowler describes such sentences as unwittingly laying a "false scent". It is a special type of sentence that creates a momentarily ambiguous interpretation because it contains a word or phrase that can be interpreted in multiple ways. When read, the sentence seems to be grammatically incorrect and nonsensical, and often requires careful parsing to understand correctly. Garden-path sentences are not usually desirable in writing that is intended to communicate clearly.

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