The Verbal Intelligence of a Trained Parrot

While I appreciate the effort my health plan providers make to keep me informed of benefits, I do with they’d hire better-trained parrots to write the notices.

“Please note that all pharmacies may not be providing… “

Really? “[A]ll pharmacies” followed by “may not”? Nonsensical*, but if the parrot were better-trained, it might have pecked out,

“Please note that not all pharmacies may be providing… “

…although the passive voice construction in this case is an abomination. A better construction altogether would have helped clarity and, probably, have avoided mocking, but then,

“For additional information about this benefit, please see the frequently asked questions on the reverse side of this letter,” would have assured loud guffaws and raucous mocking anyway. The “reverse side of this letter” was, of course, blank.

Idiots.


*Semantics (meaning) is not as sensitive to syntax in English as in some languages, but this is one of a significant class of examples where it is.

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