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

[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.