is it on is it off reply
My wife has been designed to elicit conversation.
Example:
"Shall I put the chili away, or leave it out?"
I have been designed to conserve words as a finite resource.
My reply:
"Yes."
My wife will not say yes or no.
Example:
We lose electricity in the kitchen. We live in a place that has some breakers, but also some of the old Bussmann fuses.
I go for the simplest first: the breakers.
Nope, it's the panel behind the stuff on the shelf in the garage.
When I come in, she's heading for the fuses.
I say, "Do you want me to take care of that?" (I'm the one who knows where the fuse panel is, and the new fuses on standby just for this very occasion.)
Her reply:
"Well, you went outside..."
Perhaps people feel that a yes or no is impolitely curt?
A rhetorical question, by the by.
Example:
"Shall I put the chili away, or leave it out?"
I have been designed to conserve words as a finite resource.
My reply:
"Yes."
My wife will not say yes or no.
Example:
We lose electricity in the kitchen. We live in a place that has some breakers, but also some of the old Bussmann fuses.
I go for the simplest first: the breakers.
Nope, it's the panel behind the stuff on the shelf in the garage.
When I come in, she's heading for the fuses.
I say, "Do you want me to take care of that?" (I'm the one who knows where the fuse panel is, and the new fuses on standby just for this very occasion.)
Her reply:
"Well, you went outside..."
Perhaps people feel that a yes or no is impolitely curt?
A rhetorical question, by the by.