Re: Zhuchengtyrannus, new Chinese tyrannosaurine

[Dann Pigdon <dannj@alphalink.com.au>]

On Thu, Mar 31st, 2011 at 8:34 PM, David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at> 
wrote:

> > > Upper Cretaceous Moroccan red beds in North Africa have yielded a
> > > large abelisaurid, _Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis_, together with the
> > > tetanurans _Carcharodontosaurus saharicus_ and _Spinosaurus
> > > aegyptiacus_ (Weishampel et al., 2004).
> 
> This says flat-out that *S.* is "a large abelisaurid".

The sentence structure would be considered ambiguous in English (but then what 
about English 
*isn't* ambiguous?). The following would have unambiguously stated that 
S.brevicollis was a large 
abelisaurid:

"...have yielded a large abelisaurid (_Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis_), together 
with..."

A clearly unambiguous version might have been:

"Upper Cretaceous Moroccan red beds in North Africa have yielded a
large abelisaurid, together with _Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis_ and the
tetanurans _Carcharodontosaurus saharicus_ and _Spinosaurus
aegyptiacus_ (Weishampel et al., 2004)."

Then again, the world would be a boring old place if you took the ambiguity out 
of English. To 
quote Groucho Marx:
"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll 
never know."

-- 
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Dann Pigdon
Spatial Data Analyst               Australian Dinosaurs
Melbourne, Australia               http://home.alphalink.com.au/~dannj
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