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Comment by renewiltord | Hacker News Reader

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renewiltord·

I understood it first time. What was confusing to you?

Ghost Boat - Either the craft didn't exist or it has no pilot

With Garmin GPS - okay, it's the no pilot case

Leads - Okay, they followed it to a waypoint or they discovered it motoring aimlessly

Father-Son Duo - these two were the rescuers, cool

To Man overboard - okay, pilot fell off the boat

Definitely clear to me on first read and enough for me to click through.

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as a non-native English speaker, it initially read as (something boat) causes (father/son) to (go overboard)

I'm not a native speaker either and I think what threw me off was the "Man Overboard" bit, which is usually used as a "maritime call" so to speak. So in other words, it wasn't clear to me who was overboard, the father-son duo or somebody else. What I think the title should have been is "Ghost Boat with Garmin GPS Leads Father-Son Duo to a Man Overboard", notice "a man overboard" to clearly indicate that they were led to someone who was overboard.

It’s not your fault: the title is very confusing to me and my mother tongue is English. Perhaps finding it confusing is a sign that your English is very good.

Fair enough. I can see how you could have reached that conclusion. I suppose it's written for a native speaker.

For what it's worth, ChatGPT "comprehends" it correctly so perhaps one day we can have a headline auto-expander.

I'm a native english speaker but don't really have a marine background. I also read it as the father/son somehow going overboard.

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