Friday 23 May 2008

Quote of the day: doing the impossible

"This train has 6 coaches: please board using all doors." Taken in normal English usage, this is a physical impossibility. We assume an announcement addresses each individual unless otherwise stated - and I cannot use more than one door at once. Ah, the limitations of English: we need a way of addressing a collective! Note too for Scriptural imperatives, which are more often plural than particular.

2 comments:

jjh said...

geek joke/I believe you are confused about the impossibility. They were asking you to utilize recent advances in our understanding of quantum mechanics in order to board efficiently. /geek joke

étrangère said...

Haha, of course that's it! :D