English Lesson for Me
By titaniumsoul
@titaniumsoul (1191)
Singapore
February 4, 2008 8:06pm CST
How do you interpret the following sentence: "Are we supposed to meet at Season's Hotel at 10am?" Please enlighten me as I have an argument with my friend over this sentence. My friend claim that he means "We meet at Season's Hotel at 10am". However, I have a different story, My explanation is since we have decided to meet at Orchard's Hotel, 10am and if he wants to change, he can rephrase the sentence to "How about we meet at Season's Hotel, 10am? or Can we change the venue to Season's Hotel at 10am?" Isn't it better this way? Please enlighten me on which sentence is most appropriate for conversation. The situation is this, we have planned and decided to meet at Orchard's Hotel in the first place and then I received the message above through SMS. I reply didn't we agree to meet at Orchard's Hotel? Afterwards, there is no reply until the next morning, I received a phone call stating that we meet at Orchard's Hotel. So, I went there and he blamed me for misinterpreting his message. WHATTHEF***!
1 response
@theprogamer (10532)
• United States
6 Feb 08
Are we supposed to meet at Season's Hotel at 10 am? Thats a compounded question, but a question nonetheless. Its asking for the place and the time.
I believe the other way of stating it How about we meet at Season's Hotel, at 10 am? is pretty good. Its informal but it also comes across as both questions being asked. Are we meeting at the location Season's Hotel, and Are we meeting at 10 am?.
The third question is more direct about changing the venue instead of it being more open ended. With the third question Can we change the venue to Season's Hotel at 10 am? That should be used if there are plans to go elsewhere (and at a different time). The first two questions are common questions asking if you are meeting at the same hotel and the specified time. But since you are talking about possibly changing the venue to another place, he should probably use the second or third question. It sounds your friend got confused or just responded wrong. I say next time, make sure to clarify the whole thing. Texting won't do it, asking personally is better.
@titaniumsoul (1191)
• Singapore
11 Feb 08
Thank you for your response, indeed asking personally is better than texting.

