Minutes a day n e w y o r k

Think Twice before Opening Your Thesaurus
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Ambiguous: When doing the laundry, the phone rang.
Clear: The phone rang when I was doing the laundry.
Ambiguous: She almost waited an hour for her friend.
Clear: She waited almost an hour for her friend.
Ambiguous: I told her I’d give her a ring tomorrow.
Clear: I told her I’d call her tomorrow.
Ambiguous: A speeding motorist hit a student who was jogging through the park in her blue sedan.
Clear: A speeding motorist in a blue sedan hit a student who was jogging through the park.
Correcting Ambiguous Language
Avoid Ambiguity
Ambiguous means having two or more possible meanings. Ambiguous language can either be words and phrases
that have more than one meaning, or word order that conveys a meaning different from the one intended by the
writer:
The quarterback liked to tackle his problems.
This sentence can be read two ways: The quarterback likes to deal with his problems, or his problems are his oppo-
nents on the field whom he grabs and knocks down. This kind of confusion can happen whenever a word has more
than one possible meaning. The quarterback liked to address his problems is a better sentence, and is unlikely to be
misunderstood.
My advisor proofread my essay with the red sports car.
Here, the word order of the sentence, not an individual word, causes the confusion. Did the advisor proofread the
essay with his car? Because the phrase with the red sports car is in the wrong place, the meaning of the sentence is
unclear. Try instead: My advisor with the red sports car proofread my essay.