The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders on Thursday announced that it is suing the social media company X, accusing it of spreading disinformation.
After Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, discovered that it was the target of a disinformation campaign this past summer, the Paris-based group filed 10 reports of policy violations with X, formerly known as Twitter.
Since none of the posts in question have been removed, RSF opted to sue the company in French courts “for its complicity in disseminating false information, misrepresentation and identity theft,” the group said in a statement.
Idk if you’re a native speaker or not, but as a native speaker of American English there is absolutely nothing wrong with this to me. You could put it in about 4 different places:
On Thursday the press freedom group Reporters Without Borders announced ____.
The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders on Thursday announced ____.
The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders announced on Thursday that ____.
The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders announced ____ on Thursday.
The first one typically has a comma after “Thursday”. The second one you could offset “on Thursday” with commas. The third one is at best really awkward without a “that” or a question word (who, what, where, why, how) and you could offset “on Thursday”
with commas; you can also drop the “on”, in which case you can’t use commas. The last one is possible but could be ambiguous (it could be that “on Thursday” is part of their announcement).
It’s correct, as much as any English is correct, but not typically spoken naturally like that.
The press (newspapers) has an idiosyncratic grammar, probably born of maximising space in a newspaper column. Headlines are often grammatical nightmares, body copy less so.
One could think of it as a form of semantic compression.
To be fair, you’ve added commas which makes it a parenthetical phrase. But yeah - people do speak like this in real life; technically, I should have said no-one speaks like this in non-impromptu speech without sounding stilted.
“Carl said on Thursday” is definitely more idiomatic (to my BrE ears, anyway) than “Carl on Thursday said”.
Yeah just depends what you’re emphasizing. It could be that Thursday is particularly important so it gets moved up to the second piece of info delivered
Dialect variation. For me, saying “the car needs washed” sounds truly strange but millions and millions of people say it. You’re experiencing similar with this phrase.
I think you’d call this elision. Assume that the phrase is originally “the car needs to be washed” but you cut out “to be”, making it into a shorter form. It’s pretty common in language to shorten things to make it faster to speak. Think of the endless contractions in English or perhaps leaving part of a sentence completely unspoken because the content is easily assumed by the interlocutors.
But that’s just a ‘bone apple tea’ of “chest of drawers”? It’s not a correct term.
(I figured surely there’s an actual word for misheard terms being butchered in writing, but a quick search failed me so I went with the colloquial name.)
Funny enough I learned about it in a linguistics class from a professor out of Michigan. Never heard the concept before and I think a lot of people had their minds blown.
Had they just used some punctuation - “The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders on Thursday, announced”, it would have made it easier to get. Even, “The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, on Thursday, announced” would be doable.
I think they have to sue in French court, right? Couldn’t X just “Section 230” them to no end if they sue in America? Ironically, Trump wants to repeal 230 and claim Platforms are actually publishers, but I guess he wants to do that to silence his critics and no real concern for disinformation.
Ok maybe a very stupid question but
Isn’t that gramatically incorrect? Shouldn’t it be “The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders announced on Thursday”?
I see this kind of writing a lot in news articles so surely it’s not actually wrong, but that’s not how I was taught English writing.
Idk if you’re a native speaker or not, but as a native speaker of American English there is absolutely nothing wrong with this to me. You could put it in about 4 different places:
The first one typically has a comma after “Thursday”. The second one you could offset “on Thursday” with commas. The third one is at best really awkward without a “that” or a question word (who, what, where, why, how) and you could offset “on Thursday” with commas; you can also drop the “on”, in which case you can’t use commas. The last one is possible but could be ambiguous (it could be that “on Thursday” is part of their announcement).
It’s correct, as much as any English is correct, but not typically spoken naturally like that.
The press (newspapers) has an idiosyncratic grammar, probably born of maximising space in a newspaper column. Headlines are often grammatical nightmares, body copy less so.
One could think of it as a form of semantic compression.
A good example of this is their insistence on using the comma, to mean “the”, “of” or “and”, leading to some bizarre headlines.
Which despite the fact it just sounds like a list of random words, is in fact a valid sentence. Or at least it represents one.
Though today we get:
It’s a bit stilted and no-one would speak like that (at least without sounding pretentious), but it’s not bad grammar.
Also, shame on the moron that downvoted you for asking a question.
I really don’t see why you would think this.
Completely normal thing I would expect to hear.
Unnatural to me, that sounds.
To be fair, you’ve added commas which makes it a parenthetical phrase. But yeah - people do speak like this in real life; technically, I should have said no-one speaks like this in non-impromptu speech without sounding stilted.
“Carl said on Thursday” is definitely more idiomatic (to my BrE ears, anyway) than “Carl on Thursday said”.
Yeah, I’ll agree, without any pauses it’s less natural and it’s more of a “buying time to think” thing.
Yeah just depends what you’re emphasizing. It could be that Thursday is particularly important so it gets moved up to the second piece of info delivered
Dialect variation. For me, saying “the car needs washed” sounds truly strange but millions and millions of people say it. You’re experiencing similar with this phrase.
Is there a name/term for this abomination? I’ve only ever heard one person speak in that form (omitting “to be”), and it has haunted me ever since.
I think you’d call this elision. Assume that the phrase is originally “the car needs to be washed” but you cut out “to be”, making it into a shorter form. It’s pretty common in language to shorten things to make it faster to speak. Think of the endless contractions in English or perhaps leaving part of a sentence completely unspoken because the content is easily assumed by the interlocutors.
Worse, to me, is that there is a perfectly grammatically correct way to be just as brief.
Wrong:
Right:
And for a linguist the question is really whether there are native speakers who consider it correct. Here there are millions who say yes.
‘chest of draws’ was a weird one for me!
But that’s just a ‘bone apple tea’ of “chest of drawers”? It’s not a correct term.
(I figured surely there’s an actual word for misheard terms being butchered in writing, but a quick search failed me so I went with the colloquial name.)
There’s “malapropism” that is sort of close, but even that is more like accidentally combining parts of two idioms.
It was named after a character in a play that always did it.
I believe you, I had just never heard it was “wrong” and it’s never stood out to me.
Funny enough I learned about it in a linguistics class from a professor out of Michigan. Never heard the concept before and I think a lot of people had their minds blown.
Had they just used some punctuation - “The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders on Thursday, announced”, it would have made it easier to get. Even, “The press freedom group Reporters Without Borders, on Thursday, announced” would be doable.
How do these feel?
I think they have to sue in French court, right? Couldn’t X just “Section 230” them to no end if they sue in America? Ironically, Trump wants to repeal 230 and claim Platforms are actually publishers, but I guess he wants to do that to silence his critics and no real concern for disinformation.
They’re suing in French court.