Thread: My questions about English

Logically the question cannot be answered. The sentence is grammatically ambiguous, either one could appear in the film. Without context you cannot tell.

Originally Posted by bitpicker

Logically the question cannot be answered. The sentence is grammatically ambiguous, either one could appear in the film. Without context you cannot tell.

hehehe... I was using logic to answer the question. But you are correct, if the sentence was not about appearing in a film, it would be more difficult to answer the question.

Originally Posted by delog

Ouch, I think that I understand written English quite well. Is there a way to have the answer be Jack's appearance in the film? Maybe he failed casting and paid for his role?

Well, let's simplify example:

Uwe Boll paid dev to appear in Postal 3

Who will appear in Postal 3? Uwe Boll or developers? I guess it will be Uwe Boll. Am I right?

The sentence should be

Uwe Boll paid the producers to appear in Postal 3

In that sentence it would be harder to determine who was going to be in the film, Uwe or "the producers" but I would go with Uwe due to the "logic" of the sentence because now you have the entity that is making the film being paid.

But this whole thing goes back to understanding the business to make the best choice for the answer and in the past OldBoy has asked us questions from a book or somewhere else.

If I were to pick from the two choices, FOR that sentence, I would pick the person who is getting paid as actors get paid to appear...even if it is just $1

George Clooney was paid $1 each for writing, directing, and acting in Good Night, and Good Luck, which cost $7.5 million to make.