This is a sequel to the post before the last one, made possible only because The Minister of Older People emailed me back! Thank you, sir! You'll remember that The Minister had expressed in an email a thought that didn't quite make perfect sense upon first reading it. However, the general idea of this thought would be easily understandable had he expressed it vocally during a conversation, because the listener's brain would process it quickly without subjecting it to a grammatical breakdown. Well, The Minister is at it again, but this time he's unleashed a thought that would force even the quickest of cerebella to seize up in confusion:
What is the and schedule?
Thanx,
The Minister of Older People
Imagine, if you will, that you were sitting at your desk, and a coworker popped his head into your office and said, "what is the and schedule?" If you have imagined this even half as vividly as I have been able to, there is no need for me to dissect it any further.
When I read this in the email, I grappled with it for a few seconds, and then, as we humans do, I extracted whatever sense I could from it. The best I could come up with was that The Minister would not be able to attend the event on March 26th, and was asking for April's schedule of events. If he had sent the email from his phone, his phone could have auto-corrected his "apr" contraction of "April" to read "and". Yes, I thought, that must be it. So I emailed back to him a list of April's events. I received this reply:
I said I would be there this Saturday the 26th – my question is what is the schedule and/or agenda for the 26th
I humbly beg your pardon, Minister. Of course that is what you were asking.
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