My previous post highlighted the importance of avoiding ambiguity in your communication.

[Notice that above I could have said, “My previous post was about….”  Instead, I replaced “was about” with one descriptive and powerful word: “highlighted.”]

I want to share my all-time favorite ambiguity. A classmate of mine in university wrote this in a creative non-fiction assignment. He was writing about the interaction between a friend of his and the friend’s mentor. Here’s what he wrote:

“He said, ‘Thank you very much, professor,’ and stroked his beard.”

Can you detect the ambiguity?

It makes me laugh every time. Readers don’t know whether the student was stroking his own beard or the professor’s beard!

I probably don’t need to write a future post explaining that it is not appropriate to express gratitude to a professor by stroking his beard.