Does an adjective before "or" apply to the noun that comes after "or"? [duplicate]

• Have you come across any frilly dresses or blouses?

Does this mean [frilly dresses or frilly blouses], or does it mean [frilly dresses or blouses]?

I want to know whether an adjective so placed only applies to the noun that comes immediately after it, or to the noun that comes after "or", too. Or is there ambiguity here?

I would suggest that where the adjective is capable of qualifying both of the nouns - wording of that kind can create ambiguity.

Of course if you say "I would like some hot custard or ice-cream on my pudding", it is clear that the adjective "hot" cannot possibly apply to "ice-cream".

But saying "I would like some hot custard or caramel sauce..." leaves the listener slightly unclear as to wheher the caramel sauce would neet to be hot. It is ambiguous.

So one needs to be aware of that possibility and apply more appropriate wording eg. "I would like some caramel sauce or hot custard" - where "hot" clearly does not apply to the caramel sauce. Or if you wanted your caramel sauce hot, you woud need to say "I would like custard or caramel sauce, in either case hot, please".