NASA's Radar Found 4 Men Trapped in Rubble in Nepal by Their Heartbeats

Re:NASA's Radar Found 4 Men Trapped in Rubble in Nepal by Th... by nsomaru on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:00PM (#9506988)

"Radar" is in the singular, so the plural "heartbeats" cannot apply to it.

edit: Also, if somehow the radar had multiple heartbeats, we would have used "its heartbeats" rather than "their heartbeats."

disclaimer: I am not a grammarian or a linguist (IANAGOAL?)

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Re:NASA's Radar Found 4 Men Trapped in Rubble in Nepal by Th... by eridius on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:34PM (#9507228)

That's not the ambiguity. The ambiguity is whether the Radar found them by their heartbeats, or whether they were trapped by their heartbeats.

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Re:NASA's Radar Found 4 Men Trapped in Rubble in Nepal by Th... by sliverstorm on Thursday May 07, 2015 @02:57PM (#9507412)

Or did the radar find the men, while trapped in the rubble by the men's heartbeats?

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Re:NASA's Radar Found 4 Men Trapped in Rubble in Nepal by Th... by eridius on Thursday May 07, 2015 @03:08PM (#9507497)

That doesn't work because "found 4 men" is not a modifier on "NASA's Radar". If it said "NASA's Radar Found By 4 Men Trapped In Rubble" then that would work.

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