About Language - A Weird Joke

Question

Found on-line:

A former secretary of commerce liked to tell how a high ranking official once responded to a subordinate’s request for a raise by saying, “Because of the fluctuational predisposition of your position’s productive capacity as juxtaposed to governmental statistics, it would be momentarily injudicious to advocate an incremental increase.”

The staff person said, “I don’t get it.”

The official said, “That’s right.”

http://transpremium.com/a-few-of-the-most-hilarious-language-and-translator-jokes/

Answer 1

There were too many complicated words in that sentence

Comments

Lol - indeed, too complicated for the poor subordinate, who had to guess that he would not get a raise, because he failed to understand such a vocabulary.  

Answer 2

Wait a minute!  That high-ranking official should be demoted because his/her language is much too imprecise for a person of her/his lofty station. For example, "...to advocate an incremental increase," has no unambiguous antecedent. (S)he should have said, "...to advocate an incremental increase in your pecuniary compensation."

And the response, "That's right." is woefully inadequate for a high-ranking bureaucrat. (S)he should have said, "The fiscal cogency and robustness of your microeconomic analysis are not to be gainsaid." 

Comments

 

Lol - a good analysis, although the proposed response might have added to the confusion of the poor subordinate.

That reminds me of a joke about acetylsalicylic acid - citing:

'A man walks into the pharmacy and asks the pharmacist, ”Do you have any acetylsalicylic acid?”
“Do you mean aspirin?” says the pharmacist.
“That’s it, I can never remember that word.” '

or, formerly, about sodium chloride (in German "Natriumchlorid"), or salt ...

 

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Lol, I think the subordinate will need an aspirin. 

But of course a high official's stock in trade is obfuscation, so that the yokels won't understand what's going on.

Professor Gruber of MIT explained it for us not so long ago.

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Oh yes, and they did/do it since very long ...

Even great ideas and virtues can become abusive, if "not-so-well-intended" or "zealous" people are using, overusing or misusing them and their skills.