In a BBC News article from today, 26 Nov 2010,
"Ghana bans second-hand knickers," the author makes the following statement:
The importation of these items was banned in 1994 but never implemented.
The sentence is confused because it is in fact the ban which was never implemented, but the sentence seems to clearly state that the importation was never implemented. Besides the fact that "importation" does not collocate with "implement," the importation has been going on for a long time, and that is also implied by the fact that a ban was placed: bans are generally placed only on items that are already problematic; preventative bans are almost unheard of. This is a case of inappropriate elision, because the correct construction would be:
The importation of these items was banned in 1994 but the ban was never implemented.
