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Friday, May 28, 2010

Criminal Sentence 396: Alma Mater Uh-Oh

From a Web site associated with my alma mater:

"We definitely came in knowing that Army was on a role."

Cringe!

"On a roll" means doing well.

"On a role" means you made a mistake!


3 comments:

Westley said...

What threw me before I even got to the 'role' was the use of 'Army' as if it were a proper noun. I would have said, "We definitely came in knowing that _the_ Army was on a roll." (unless, of course, the rest of the paragraph set it up differently...I can't imagine how, though :-)

The Sentence Sleuth said...

In this case Army is correct because Cornell played Army. I guess they play Navy, too. I guess I should have said this was a sporting contest.

Westley said...

Ah! Yes, that does make sense. Thanks for the clarification!