I found an article on Huffington Post about a
a very special hospital in Myanmar. It was founded and was funded (and still is) by Muslims in Myanmar in 1937 when the country was still called Burma. The institute provides medical care for the poor people free of charge, and welcomes all people of any religion. As the article says, it is remarkable that the hospital is run so for 80 years considering the status of the Muslims in the country. In Myanmar, the majority of the population is Buddhist, while Muslims are only 4%/.The Buddhist monks openly incite violence to Muslims. The article tells how remarkably the institution is run till today even in such disadvantageous condition. I am awed by the people keep this institution running.
What surprised me linguistically is not the content of the article but the naming of the hospital.
Muslim Free Hospital
I wondered where the word FREE falls on. If it was working like a suffix, Muslim-Free, the institute would turn into a really discriminative one, not accepting any Muslims (look at the definition of the suffix in Roki's article
Smoke-free.) And thinking about the proportion and the condition of the Muslims in Myanmar, the possibility of that cynical reading could not be ruled out.
Since there is no hyphen linking Muslim and Free, it can be read 'Free Hospital', and it must be read like that.
Comma or hyphen could have done a job to make a clearer understanding. Punctuation does matter.
