This sentence is ambiguous as it can mean two quite different things:
1) That for Ken, it is strange not to agree with us.
2) For us or somebody else, it is strange that Ken disagrees with us.

English language ambiguities, alas!

I don't see that there is any ambiguity here. 'us' includes the speaker, so it is the speaker's opinion that Ken is acting oddly by not agreeing with 'us'.

=).
if you want to enjoy more of them, just click on the tag "ambiguous" I just made =).

=> blay_paul

I was just wondering when you were going to pop-up over my shoulder and I gambled you would precisely on that one...

So you deliberately made a statement that was not true in the hopes that I would correct you? Doesn't seem like a very productive way to spend your time but it's up to you.

No I didn't, and I stick to my view as to this ambiguity, but I was certain you would take a contrary view, I don't know why...experience, probably...

re-reading this sentence, I stick to my initial position that it is ambiguous and can be interpreted as :

From Ken's point of view, it is strange that he doesn't agree with us.

>It's ambiguous, but the amibiguity could easily be removed with a simple restatement of the sentence.

It's funny that you say that, because here is what Zifre just wrote to me in a private message:

"I suggest that you stop spending so much time arguing with native English speakers about English. You may catch some error that we won't catch (and please point them out), but if many native English speakers disagree with you (yes I know it's only two so far in this case, but I've seen cases where it's more, along with many non-native speakers), then you're basically wrong by definition. Similarly, I wouldn't argue with you over the correctness of French sentences.

I'm going to try not to discuss this particular sentence in the comments, because it is a known fact on Tatoeba that arguing with you in comments is generally not a productive use of time. I'm not aware of any other user that has this problem.

Also, you seem to think that English has more ambiguities than other languages..."

Hilarious, no?

>So I think it should be noted:1. There is ambiguity.

That is all I have been claiming, against all odds, since July 2010! I'm soooo glad a native admits it, AT LAST, against the view of 2 contemptuous native moderators who dared slander me for it!

This will be remembered in Tatoeba as a CORNERSTONE, never to be forgotten!
A lesson to PREPOSTEROUS, CONDESCENDING and XENOPHOBIC self-proclaimed language experts!

@sacredceltic:

I basically agree with Nero. There is grammatical ambiguity, but there is no real semantic ambiguity.

This is what I was going to tell you earlier, but I didn't think it would be worth the effort.

(I also figured that, with you involved, I wouldn't be able to keep my promise...)

>I basically agree with Nero. There is grammatical ambiguity, but there is no real semantic ambiguity.

So why did you tell me to " stop spending so much time arguing with native English speakers about English"?
I detected an ambiguity and I DEMAND an appropriate tag "ambiguous" to be applied, now that 2 NATIVES admit it is one!

I also ask for apologies:
1) By Blay_Paul: "I don't see that there is any ambiguity here."
2) By you, Zifre, for denying me the right, as a non-native, to spend time arguing with native English speakers, because it is obvious that it was perfectly productive to do so.
3) By you Zifre, again, for accusing me of being a waste of time, because in this case, it wasn't. And I dare you to cite another example where my contribution was.

You should be ashamed, as a moderator of an international project, to bully contributors into abstaining from making valuable comments under the pretext of nationality. You're the shame of open communities! You are a xenophopbic sectarian!

And yes, I confirm English has much more ambiguities than most other languages I know, and the reasons are plain to understand to non-fanatics:
1) English is a superposition of languages, with insconsistent corpora such as Latin, Danish, Saxon, Franco-Norman,...
2) English is not governed by any official body and is left to the anarchy of "usage", local and global...

Saying this, I do not make a judgement of value, but a mere factual analysis that any linguist will agree with.

@unprejudiced moderator: tag "ambiguous", please!

> I detected an ambiguity and I DEMAND an appropriate tag "ambiguous" to be applied, now that 2 NATIVES admit it is one!

I actually will do that, once we have a sensible definition for what an ambiguity is. Do we tag grammatical ambiguities when there is only one reasonable understanding (e.g this)? Do we tag semantic ambiguities that have the same grammatical form (e.g. the infamous "non-finite" sentences)?

In reality, every sentence is ambiguous, because every language makes more precise distinctions than others in certain areas. Chinese has different words for older and younger brother. I'm not going to go around tagging all English sentences with "brother" in them because English does not make this distinction. English has a distinction between "more" and "most" in cases where many languages don't. Lojban distinguishes four kinds of "because".

If we make our definition too broad, we might cover half the corpus.

So far, I think the only type of sentence that we can say is definitely ambiguous is "They can fish." and similar things that can be interpreted in two very different ways.

> I actually will do that, once we have a sensible definition for what an ambiguity is.

So you see?. English is so ambiguous that the very definition of what an ambiguity is, is up in the air, now...
QED

Shall we also define what a sentence, words, English and a language are?

>When it comes to translating this sentence, I would recommend translating the very obvious, likely intended meaning, in the same way I would translate "How are you?" as a greeting rather than as in inquiry about a person's health.

With English, people translate according to their own experience, which can vastly vary from a region of the world to the other.
I can't see how anybody, including you, CK, would guarantee that an interpretation or another is not possible. You can't possibly have been in all countries where this language is used, and heard all its usages. English is defined by its usage and only by that. Words and expressions that were considered plain wrong in England a few decades ago became the staple in the US or Australia...
If somebody experiences that "How are you?" is being used somewhere to inquire about somebody's health (and I'm pretty sure it's done), then it should be accepted as a valid translation.