# US House races 2026 **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 23, 2025, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-house-races-2026/1023336 "2025-09-23T16:38:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 169
**Author:** ![Gordon\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Gordon\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_G)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2026, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-house-races-2026/1023336/169 "2026-10-21T05:30:12Z")
Ambiguous grammar intrigues me; I hope I can be forgiven a minor hijack. Assume, of course, no prior knowledge of PhillyGuy: View the sentence in isolation. > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > > [@PhillyGuy](#): > > > > As for her guilt, I believe in the presumption of innocence for everyone but would agree it’s stronger here than normally. > > Gonna nitpick grammar here because it’s important: “it’s” in your sentence has an ambiguous antecedent, and which antecedent you intend changes the sentence. When I first read his sentence, I assumed PhillyGuy thought she was guilty. Why? The use of “but” to adjoin two clauses usually implies that the second clause is in contradiction to the first. (But in fact “but” was just thrown in for emphasis.) Moreover the initial “As for” focuses the intended meaning onto “guilt.” OTOH, more careful reading leads to the opposite conclusion. The ambiguity is whether “it” refers to “guilt” or to “presumption”. But a presumption can be “strong” or weak, while guilt tends to be a simple yes/no thing. The moral of the story: Take a few seconds for a reread before posting. Ambiguities which wouldn’t arise face-to-face can wander into the written language. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-house-races-2026/1023336)._