Thursday, August 13, 2020

~100% ambiguity


‘Commonsense applied to Semantics’ talks about ambiguities in the interpretation of the meanings of text. (Typically, pronouns apply to which of the nouns in the previous sentence).

But commonsense “ambiguity” is at almost every word/phrase, of every single sentence. (Obviously resulting in humour). 

Consider this sentence - a rule stated  for say 5th graders.

“If found guilty, the student will be asked to stand on the bench”.

WORD         AMBIGUITY

Guilty -          If guilty of murder?

Student -      Which student? - student committing the guilt or some other student?

Stand -         on hands / legs?   

Bench -        bench of the classroom or some other bench elsewhere? 

On -             on the seat of the bench or the top-edge of the back-rest?’

The -            is there some special ‘the bench’?

If found guilty - So I can commit a guilt if I can take care of not being found!


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