Without reading the article, the title just says wash the car.
I could go for a walk and wash my car in my driveway.
Mentioning the car wash and washing the car plus the possibility of driving the car in the same context pretty much eliminates any ambiguity. All of the puzzle pieces are there already.
I guess this is an uninteded autism test as well if this is not enough context for someone to understand the question.
Understanding the intent of the question *and understanding why it could be interpreted differently *\and understanding why is it is a poorly phrased question are not related to autism. (In my case)
I want to wash my car. No location or method is specified. No ‘at the car wash’. No ‘take my car to the car wash’ . No ‘take the car through the car wash’
Should I walk or drive? To do what? Wash the car? Ok. If the car wash is an option, that seems very far. But walking there seems silly. Since no method or location for washing the car was mentioned I could wash my own car.
Do you see how this works?
Yes, you can infer what was implied, but the question itself offers no certainty that what you infer is what it is actually implying.
Look, human conversations are full of context deduction and inference. In this case “I want to wash my car. The car wash is 50 meters away. Should I walk or drive?” states my random desire, a possible solution and the question all in one context. None of these sentences make sense in isolation as you point out, but within the same frame they absolutely give you everything you need to answer the question of find alternatives if needed.
Sorry for the random online stranger diagnosis but this is just such an excelent example of neurodivergent need for extreme clarity I couldn’t help myself.
I agree that it should be able to infer the intent, but I stand by that it remain somewhat unclear and open to interpretation. Eg, I’d such language was used in a legal contract, it would not be enough to simply say, well, they should understand what I meant.
The people doing this test, I’m sure, are not linguistic masters.
There are lines of work where clarity is essential.
It is not. It says what I want to do, and where.
Understanding the intent of the question *and understanding why it could be interpreted differently *\and understanding why is it is a poorly phrased question:
I want to wash my car. No location or method is specified. No ‘at the car wash’. No ‘take my car to the car wash’ . No ‘take the car through the car wash’
Should I walk or drive? To do what? Wash the car? Ok. If the car wash is an option, that seems very far. But walking there seems silly. Since no method or location for washing the car was mentioned I could wash my own car.
Do you see how this works?
Yes, you can infer what was implied, but the question itself offers no certainty that what you infer is what it is actually implying.
bluesheep@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
No it doesn’t? It says:
In which world is that an ambiguous question?
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Where is the car?
This is the exact question a person would ask when they to have a gotcha answer. Nobody would ask this question, which makes it suspect to a straight forward answer.
Gorillazrule@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
That’s a very good point! For that matter the car could still be at the bar where I got drunk and took an uber home last night. In which case walking or driving would both be stupid.
Or perhaps I’m in a wheelchair, in which case I wouldn’t really be ‘walking’.
Or maybe the car wash that is 50 meters away is no longer operating, so even if I walked or drove there, I still wouldn’t be able to walk my car.
Is the car wash self serve or one of the automatic ones? If it’s self serve what type of currency does it take? Does it only take coins or does it take card as well? If it takes coins, is there a change machine out front? Does the change machine take card or only bills? Do I even have my wallet on me?
There are so many details left out of this question that nobody could possibly fathom an answer!
…/s if it’s not obvious
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
The reason why your /s is there is for the same reason the question made no sense.