7
A black and a white dog means "two dogs".
A black and white dog means "one dog".
Then what about black and white dogs?
Does this mean two things? "Dogs, each of black and white color" and "dogs of black and dogs of white"?
"Black and white dogs": ambiguity with coordinate adjectives
Answers
3
Unfortunately the plural can designate either group: (1) bicolor dogs, and (2) black dogs and white dogs.
They can be disambiguated as follows:
black dogs and white dogs
black-and-white dogs
black and white brindle dogs (brindle means several colors on the same dog)
dogs, both black and white,...
CocoPop
Posted 2014-08-05T11:26:50.617
Reputation: 6 719
1so "white and black dogs" means two things?: "bicolor dogs" and "white dogs and black dogs, which are not bicolor?" – None – 2014-08-05T13:33:08.000
1potentially, yes. – CocoPop – 2014-08-05T13:38:41.577
1so you should reflect that...as it is written, its still ambiguous. But thank you very much. – None – 2014-08-05T13:41:30.730
4did you perhaps not read (2) in the first line of my response? – CocoPop – 2014-08-05T13:48:16.293
1 I would describe brindle as a mottled brown color. A dog can be brindle and white in which case the dog will have patches of white and patches of brindle (mottled/variegated brown) but you wouldn't call a black-and-white dog a brindle. See here for a picture of a brindle: http://www.dogocanarioclub.us/images/Andy%20de%20Cielo%20de%20Canarias5.jpg and here's a picture of a brindle and white: http://949newsnow.com/upload/SUGAR2.jpg
2 Thank you for your insights, and especially for your restriction on how I would and wouldn't call a black-and-white dog. Fortunately, I was a dog breeder for 20 years and black and white dogs are either spotted or brindle, as is this: http://www.ebay.com/sch/sis.html?_nkw=CHINKS%20FANCY%20BRINDLE%20BLACK%20AND%20WHITE%20HAIR%20ON%20HAND%20TOOLED%20SILVER%20CONCHOS%20NEW&_itemId=390812123952
1I think this is a good question. I'm not sure why it was downvoted, let alone twice. – snailplane – 2014-09-25T14:14:59.603