“As the president of the United States, you have power to change the course of history, and the responsibility to save lives right now,” the staffers wrote.

  • TokenBoomer@lemmy.worldOP
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    1 year ago

    It’s called grammar. I didn’t make the rules.

    As as a conjunction

    The conjunction “as” has several different meanings. We use “as” when one event happens while another is in progress (‘during the time that’). In this case the verb after is often in the continuous form:

    “They arrived as we were leaving. (time conjunction meaning ‘while’ or ‘when’)

    So I don’t see it as malice or misinformation. I had no no trouble with the headline.

    • Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      An implication doesn’t need to be directly conveyed, especially in a situation so small as a headline. Implication is often used in headlines to convey more information that explicitly stating everything, and especially to save on word count.

      For example: “TITANIC SINKS, 1500 DIE” Purely by literal meaning: A big boat sank, and somewhere at somepoint, many people died of something. Odd to include that people have died before, that’s just a fact of life, but the Titanic was carrying a lot of people, did they survive? Too bad the headline didn’t say, I guess they don’t know yet.

      We could look even deeper and conclude that Biden rejected the possibility of a ceasefire specifically because the former staffers demands. I don’t think he’s that spiteful, so it would be an odd interpretation, but it would be fully grammatical correct. Sorry, I didn’t make the rules.

      As, because and since are conjunctions. As, because and since all introduce subordinate clauses. They connect the result of something with its reason.

      As you were out, I left a message.

      She may need some help as she’s new.

      So I don’t see how a single definition rules out others, as several exist.

      • TokenBoomer@lemmy.worldOP
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        1 year ago

        So, you didn’t like, or understand the headline, and that’s the author’s fault. Fair point. It doesn’t make it grammatically incorrect though. Email the writer and let them know, if it means that much to you.

        • slackassassin@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          So they were grammatically correct with their intentionally misleading headline. Glad everyone reached a consensus.

          • TokenBoomer@lemmy.worldOP
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            1 year ago

            Because it’s grammatically correct it’s not intentionally misleading. “As” is the keyword. Run has 645 meanings. Just because people interpret a phrase differently doesn’t mean it’s wrong, or malicious.

                • slackassassin@sh.itjust.works
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                  1 year ago

                  It leaves out context, intentionally. If this was a fox news headline, I’d say the same thing, and you’d agree.

                  • TokenBoomer@lemmy.worldOP
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                    1 year ago

                    The context is in the article. It could be argued that it is in the headline too, but some obviously have interpreted it differently.

                    Edit: Replace “as” with “while” and maybe you’ll understand.