meaning - Does an adjective apply to both nouns when joined with 'and'?



Can you grab the blue shirts and socks?



Is the above sentence stating that both the shirts and the socks are blue? Or only the shirts?


At this stage, I am leaning towards the earlier (only the shirts) — though writing "Can you grab the blue shirts and blue socks?" seems redundant.



Answer



It could that be both are blue, or it could be that only the shirts are blue. If the context didn’t make it clear, the speaker who wanted to avoid any doubt that it was both blue shirts and blue socks that were required would have to say something like ‘Can you grab the shirts and socks? Just the blue ones. I don’t want any other colours.’


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