The Monkey Cage

I would say the problem with the question is using multiple choice format for the answer.

Bill:
I disagree. The problem is that the question is ambiguous, irrespective of whether it’s stated as open-ended or multiple choice. That is, it’s question wording, not answer format, that’s the source of the ambiguity.

If you use the second interpretation, the answer is unambiguously g. And it will continue to be so until every otherwise-eligible American has died (or otherwise rendered themselves ineligible to become President) who was born before LBJ.

Phil:

From a purely linguistic point of view, you are correct. However, linguists recognize that in understanding any utterance, context must also be taken into account. So let’s think about the context here.

To dominate Lyndon Johnson, who was born in 1908, an eligible American would have to have been born before him — let’s say, to be as kind to your argument as possible, that someone would have had to be born earlier in 1908 than LBJ was. That individual would now be 101 years old. The next president will not begin to serve until 2013, by which time someone born early in 1908 would be 104 or 105 years old. (The current line of succession doesn’t include any 101-year-olds, so 2013 would be the earliest start date possible for some who is currently 101 to start serving as president.) What do you think of that possibility? Wearing my political scientist hat, I think we can set it aside without any hesitation whatsoever.

So where does this leave us? As a matter of pure, contextless logic, I’m happy to acknowledge your point. As a political scientist or even as someone who is willing to take the substance of the matter into account, I am even happier to discount it. But I do thank you for paying close attention and thinking about the possibilities.

In my opinion, this question is much less ambiguous than you suggest. The question asks for the first president born in the twentieth century, and the most plausible, by far, interpretation of that question is: Which person born in the 20th century became president first?not Which person with the earliest 20th- century birth date eventually became president?
Now, if the question had read: “Who was the president born first in the twentieth century?” that would be a different matter. In other words, it’s the location of the word “first” in the question that indicates the most natural reading and most plausible interpretation, at least to me.

Obviously we disagree about whether a or b is the better answer, which I take as further evidence of the ambiguity of the question. The ambiguity rests in the phrase “first president,” because no one is born as president. “Of all persons born in the twentieth century, who was the first to become president?” would unambiguously point to Kennedy. “Of all persons who became president, who was born earliest in the twentieth century?” would point unambiguously to Johnson. “Who was the first president born in the twentieth century” is just ambiguous.

My point, Lee, was that without the multiple choices forcing one’s hand in giving an answer, one can address the vagueness of the question in the answer. So that, without the multiple choice the correct answer is:

John Kennedy was the first person born in the 20th century to be elected president, while Lyndon Johnson had closest birthday, among President’s born in the 20th Century, to the start of the 20th Century.

But then i often like to write vague questions to examine how the students think about their answers

Bill:
Okay, then, here’s a challenge: Ask your students, or for that matter anyone you know, who the first president born in the twentieth century was — the wording this item started with — and just let them respond as they wish. Lots of them will say “I don’t know,” because they simply don’t know the pertinent facts. I’m betting that lots of those who are willing to provide a substantive answer will say “Kennedy” and virtually or even actually no one will say “Johnson.” Which, I hasten to add, doesn’t mean that the question isn’t ambiguous. But I’m also willing to bet that nobody will give what you and I take to be the correct answer. And if I’m right, then the problem isn’t one of multiple-choice versus open-ended formatting. Indeed, I’d bet they’d be more likely to get to the correct answer via the multiple-choice route, albeit for the wrong reason: because the mere presence of that alternative (g) will scare some of them into choosing it.

Anybody who made it this far into this discussion may want to take a look at the comments the issue sparked on Language Log: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1384#comments

Sorry, Lee, I just don’t see it.

Over at Language Log he tries to make it ambiguous by pointing out that sometimes we read “the first X verbed adverbial” as depending upon the date of X-hood and sometimes we read it as depending upon the date the adverbial phrase applied. Thus:

“The first doctor born in Patagonia”

We (except for Lee) think that this refers to Jones — born in 1902, doctor in 1925 — rather than Smith — born in 1901, doctor in 1930.

However,

“The first Nobel prize winner named to the cabinet”

refers to Chu — won the prize in 1997, named in 2009 — rather than, say, Osherhoff — won in 1996, named (suppose) in 2010.

In the former case, it’s the date the individual became doctor that matters (X in “the first X verbed adverbial); in the latter case, it’s the date the individual was named to the cabinet (verbed adverbial in “the first X verbed adverbial”).

But this is all too much.

Notice that each of these (and the other examples) has the form “the first individual to have property Y and property Z. The correct (says I!) analysis of all the sentences of this form is simply that.

The first president born in the 20th C is the first person to satisfy both descriptions (president and born in the 20th C.) and that’s Kennedy.

The first doctor born in Patagonia is the first person to be both a doctor and born in Patagonia and that’s Jones (in the example above).

The first Nobel prize winner named to the cabinet is the first person to win the Nobel prize and to be named to the cabinet, and that’s Chu.

No ambiguity.

If you wanted to pick out the president born first in the 20th C, then you need to say that. Your modifier must modify that phrase:

Who was the President born first in the 20th C.?

Philocyclist, being a philosopher, produces much ado about nothing.

If the question were “Who was the first baby born in the twentieth century?,” then we would have a quesiton resolveable solely on the basis of the facts — provided that records were precise enough.

As a political scientist, I understand, as Philocyclist apparently does not, that no one is born president. So, unlike the question about the baby, one has to try to figure out what this one means, the crucial question being what it means to have been the “first president” born in the 20th century. And that’s exactly where the ambiguity enters. The first person who would later become president to have been born in the twentieth century was LBJ — and that’s a perfectly legitimate construction of what the question means. The first person to become president after being born in the twentieth century was JFK — and that is, too. I happen to like the LBJ answer more than the JFK one.

Sigh. Note to self: when speaking to political scientists, use simple words.

We can ask two questions about “Who was the first president born in the 20th C?”

(1) Is this an ambiguous question?

(2) Might people interpret this question as asking something other than it asks?

The answer to (1) is no. Despite an attempt to make it seem ambiguous by Language Log, and despite Lee’s assertions that it’s ambiguous, the obvious understanding of the question is the correct one. This is supported by the analysis I gave above. Evidence that that analysis is correct comes from the sense it makes of our intuitions on the various other examples that Language Log comes up with.

(My claim is that statements of the form “The first X who Ys” refer to the first individual who satisfies both predicates.

Lee seems to think that these statements are ambiguous, that “the first” might modify either X or Y, so that they might mean the first person who satisfied X and who later Y’ed or the first person who satisfied Y and who later X’ed. But this, I say, is poppycock. Otherwise, before we evaluated constructions such as “The first man on the moon” we need to learn whether Neil Armstrong was born before (and thus achieved manhood before) Buzz Aldrin. We don’t need to learn this (and we don’t think — do you, Lee? — when learning that Aldrin was 7 months older that Aldrin was really the first man on the moon). Imagine that you think that manhood does not happen automatically when one reaches a particular age, but only when one reaches a particular maturity. That seems reasonable. Do you then investigate to find out who was mature earlier, Armstrong or Aldrin? I didn’t think so.)

What about (2)? Might reasonable people interpret the question in different ways? Well, as political scientists prove every day, intelligent people say the oddest things.

I withdraw. Having lost the argument, Philocyclist now resorts to insult, weak analogy, and common usage. (By the common usage rule, Mickey D’s must be his favorite restaurant.) The ambiguity is clear for all who do not blind themselves to it; even if it’s not your favorite construction, it’s a plausible one.