I don’t like M.C. Escher’s art that much, but I can’t resist comparisons between his spirals and staircases to the English in some business documents I often have to read. It is amazing that business is done, money changes hands, buildings and bridges do not collapse (usually) despite the fact that what people say on paper is either vague, ambiguous or simply just drivel. Does this makes sense to you:
“The location of the investment shall be determined pursuant to the local zoning plan. If the local zoning plan has not been adopted for a specific area, the location of the public investment shall be determined by a decision on determining the location of a public investment, whereas other investments by a decision on development conditions.”
It always cracks me up when the recipient of a letter, a lawyer or consultant with whom I work closely, says they understand what the author meant to say even though they agree that what he actually says is impenetrable, and then draft a letter in reply to match or go one better in the impenetrability stakes. One wonders what the other side thinks of it!
And yet, they all understand one another! This must be where Grice’s conversational implicature comes in, and specifically the principle of cooperation. We do not, willingly, seek to misunderstand.
But if language of the stated kind has me tearing my hair out and thinking unprintable thoughts, I actually purposefully seek out ambiguity and test the limits of understanding for pleasure. And, interestingly, many of such verbal ambiguities resemble Escher’s art. The ones relying on lexical ambiguity are merely fun; the ones exploiting syntactic ambiguity are one level up on the former; while the ones hinging on both are simply brilliant. Here are a few:
A: Where are you going?
B: I am going down to the bank to get some money.
A: Who do you bank with?
B: I’m sorry, I don’t understand?
A: You said you were going down to the bank to get some money.
B: And so I am; I keep my money buried in a chest down by the river.
(Descriptions, Stephen Neale)
Humphrey Lyttelton used to ask on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue: - How many legs have donkeys? The panelists wrestled with the question for a while whereupon Humph would deadpan: - Legs don’t have donkeys.
P.G. Wodehouse, Mark Twain, B.J. Priestly, Ambrose Bierce and Groucho Marx have delivered in the last category, to quote but one example: ‘Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.’
The quote resembles a cube in the oblique plane (hence the Escher connection), with the front and rear faces flipping back and forth.
I have been playing around with my nemesis ‘the mole’ and have come up with this: There are different ways in which you can remove moles? A/ with laser, B/ with explosives, C/ by blowing their cover, but coming up with a piece of dialogue where the ambiguities are cancelled one by one, but not until they’ve had their run, has proved elusive so far. [mole: a/ a growth on the human skin; b/ a breakwater running out into the sea, c/ a spy, d/ animal that burrows underground (not intended by the question yet temptingly close)].
“The location of the investment shall be determined pursuant to the local zoning plan. If the local zoning plan has not been adopted for a specific area, the location of the public investment shall be determined by a decision on determining the location of a public investment, whereas other investments by a decision on development conditions.”
It always cracks me up when the recipient of a letter, a lawyer or consultant with whom I work closely, says they understand what the author meant to say even though they agree that what he actually says is impenetrable, and then draft a letter in reply to match or go one better in the impenetrability stakes. One wonders what the other side thinks of it!
And yet, they all understand one another! This must be where Grice’s conversational implicature comes in, and specifically the principle of cooperation. We do not, willingly, seek to misunderstand.
But if language of the stated kind has me tearing my hair out and thinking unprintable thoughts, I actually purposefully seek out ambiguity and test the limits of understanding for pleasure. And, interestingly, many of such verbal ambiguities resemble Escher’s art. The ones relying on lexical ambiguity are merely fun; the ones exploiting syntactic ambiguity are one level up on the former; while the ones hinging on both are simply brilliant. Here are a few:
A: Where are you going?
B: I am going down to the bank to get some money.
A: Who do you bank with?
B: I’m sorry, I don’t understand?
A: You said you were going down to the bank to get some money.
B: And so I am; I keep my money buried in a chest down by the river.
(Descriptions, Stephen Neale)
Humphrey Lyttelton used to ask on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue: - How many legs have donkeys? The panelists wrestled with the question for a while whereupon Humph would deadpan: - Legs don’t have donkeys.
P.G. Wodehouse, Mark Twain, B.J. Priestly, Ambrose Bierce and Groucho Marx have delivered in the last category, to quote but one example: ‘Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.’
The quote resembles a cube in the oblique plane (hence the Escher connection), with the front and rear faces flipping back and forth.
I have been playing around with my nemesis ‘the mole’ and have come up with this: There are different ways in which you can remove moles? A/ with laser, B/ with explosives, C/ by blowing their cover, but coming up with a piece of dialogue where the ambiguities are cancelled one by one, but not until they’ve had their run, has proved elusive so far. [mole: a/ a growth on the human skin; b/ a breakwater running out into the sea, c/ a spy, d/ animal that burrows underground (not intended by the question yet temptingly close)].
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