What is the name of the ambiguity in the phrase "I want to visit clubs with attractive women"?



I want to visit clubs with attractive women.



This phrase can be interpreted in two ways:




  • I want to visit clubs myself, but the clubs I visit should have attractive women.




  • I want to take attractive women to clubs; the clubs themselves may or may not already have attractive women.




Is there a name for this ambiguity? It seems fairly common. I want to say "dangling participle", but I'm pretty sure that's wrong.


Is this the equivalent of Grouch Marx's "I shot an elephant in my pajamas... how he got into my pajamas, I'll never know"?



Answer



Your sentence contains an example of ambiguity resulting from a misrelated construction. The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar defines misrelated as follows:



Not attached grammatically to the word or phrase intended by the meaning, either joined to the wrong word or phrase, or completely unattached.


Although terms such as misrelated, dangling, hanging, unattached, etc. are most commonly applied to participles, verbless phrases can also be misrelated.



The offending misrelation in your sentence is not a participle but a prepositional phrase.


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