Harry ordered a drink for the girl at the bar.
The girl at the bar is the one Harry ordered the drink for.
Harry ordered a drink, at the bar, for the girl (the girl sitting at a table? the girl in the bathroom? the girl across the street?).
Syntax really can be fun.
3 comments:
Boy, howdy! I've got to really strain to even think that the girl might be anywhere but at the bar. I'm trying out different ways of emphasizing different parts of the sentence in a spoken mode and I can't come up with one that suggests the girl isn't at the bar.
@faldone: context can do that for you instead, e.g. "Harry left the hotel room to get drinks for everyone. The men were happy with beers from the off-licence*, but *she* wanted a fancy cocktail, so Harry ordered a drink for the girl at the bar."
*"liquor store" if you're from that side of the Atlantic.
Thank you, Tim, for the wonderful example. As long as you are walking up to the bar, I would love a drink please; the waitress is taking way too long.
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