Quotations, Memes and Jokes - Ambiguous Sentances

[jack]

Stolen from Beware of Doug on SDMB. I think I may use as a sig.

The canonical criteria of an ambiguous sentence are:

(1) being an instruction, order, or injunction
(2) interpretable in mutually contradictory reasonable¹ ways
(3) demanding correct interpretation to prevent catastrophic loss of life and/or property.

For instance, "Just remember one thing: you can never put too much water on the reactor."

[1] Edited to add 'reasonable'

Comments

[mr-ricarno.livejournal.com]

This is why there's this lovely thing called Pragmatics, which fills in the gaps created by a purely truth-conditional take on semantics.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. Yeah, I must read about pragmatics one day, many of my philosophy puzzles and jokes rely on that kind of thing :)

Though this example is particularly good, because it's pretty ambiguous until you have context AND tone of voice.

[rochvelleth.livejournal.com]

Lol :) That so wants to be your new sig - make it so! I particularly like criterion (3) :)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

When I first read that I interpreted it as you particularly liking my use of 'criterion', unusual singulars being inherently funny. Only when I couldn't find it did I read the next character :) (3) Was what sold it to me (in the original, the sentence came first and everything else was a response to that.)

Also, thanks. Will do.

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

That example doesn't actually qualify. You can't reasonably interpret it as meaning anything other than "Adding extra water to the reactor is never harmful". The alternative, "If you put too much water on the reactor, you and all you hold dear will be consumed by nuclear fire", disagrees with the statement: you can put too much water on the reactor, but are unlikely to survive the experience.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I admit I found that interpretation *less* obvious, but I think if you interpret 'can' in the sense of 'permitted', it parses perfectly well. Compare "You can't do that!"

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

Which statement I disagree with, as you usually just *have*. "You mayn't do that" is just *better*.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I parsed¹ that correctly, but you're saying he's using 'can' when he should be using 'may'? Yeah, I'll agree 'may' is *better*, and that in this context specifically it's forced, but I think that usage of 'can' has become standard, and it would be clear what he meant if it wasn't for the alternative interpretation.

You could hypothesise an appended silent '...without losing your pride, job and/or life' if that makes more sense.

[1] One of the funniest exchanges I've seen was on a message board and went roughly:

A: I don't think you parsed that right.
B: What are you saying about me? I didn't do anything to it! I didn't parse it, and I resent the implication!
A: Well, obviously you didn't, but you might want to look that up now...