Ambiguous language

We sat in traffic for four hours on Friday on our way to Williamsburg. I was reminded of the opening of the movie Office Space, where the guy looks over from his morning commute and sees an old man with a walker moving faster than he is. I made a comment about this, along with one about the scene where the guys beat up the copier.

Some time later, the following conversation ensued:

Orville: "I want to hear more about the scene with the shapeshifter."
Parents: "Huh?"
Orville: "The scene where they attack a shapeshiftper."
Parents: "Who mentioned a shapeshifter? When?"
Orville: "You said that they attacked a copier."
Parents: "Er…they beat up a Xerox machine…like a printer…with baseball bats."
Orville: "Huh?"

Just goes to show how important context is when dealing with language.

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6 thoughts on “Ambiguous language

  1. You can tell that you and John are geek friendly since Orville associated the word “copier” with a shapeshifter rather than a copy machine. :)

    Oh, and a very Happy and Blessed Easter to you and your Family!

  2. You can tell that you and John are geek friendly since Orville associated the word “copier” with a shapeshifter rather than a copy machine. :)

    Oh, and a very Happy and Blessed Easter to you and your Family!

  3. You guys win the Awesome Geek Parent award for having a child that thinks that way :)

    Were you heading to Colonial Williamsburg? I spent a lot of very happy days there as a youngin’. We had permanent passes (year long? seasonal? I don’t know, I was too young to care.) when my dad was stationed at Langley AFB.

  4. You guys win the Awesome Geek Parent award for having a child that thinks that way :)

    Were you heading to Colonial Williamsburg? I spent a lot of very happy days there as a youngin’. We had permanent passes (year long? seasonal? I don’t know, I was too young to care.) when my dad was stationed at Langley AFB.

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