“Do you have a spare ciggie?” - Semantics of the Day
While I was walking through Sheffield on my way back from work earlier, a bloke approached me and the following discourse took place:
Him:”Do you have a spare cigarette?”
Me: “I don’t smoke.”
It was only as I walked away from him that, pedantic as I am, I realised I hadn’t answered his question. In telling him I don’t smoke, literally speaking, all I did was give him some information he hadn’t asked for. Just because I don’t smoke doesn’t mean I don’t carry cigarettes around with me, and if I did carry cigarettes as a non-smoker, of course they would be spare; they would be surplus to my personal requirements.
On the other hand, had I answered the man directly and responded “no”, this could be interpreted as that I have cigarettes on my person, but that they aren’t spare. Had the man taken this to mean that, he may have thought I was selfish and rude. He may have become aggressive. It could have ended very unpleasantly with my being stabbed, all over a cigarette I never had in the first place.
So what would the semantically correct response be in this situation, scared as I am of being stabbed but equally scared of not conveying the right information so as to provide the questioner with a direct response that resolves their query? I suppose I should have told the man “No, I don’t have any cigarettes”. To appear extra polite, I could even add an apology - “sorry!” (although perhaps not with the cheerful inflection implied by the exclamation mark) - to the end of my response. It would be impossible to find fault with this answer; it is direct, thorough, and difficult to misinterpret. He cannot argue with it, not even by asking “are you sure?” for it is unlikely that if I can answer so certainly that I am not in the possession of any cigarettes, if I were to reconsider for a moment, some would magically appear inside my handbag or pocket.
Fortunately, the man took my response to mean what I intended it to; that by telling him I don’t smoke, what was implied was that I have no cigarettes, and therefore have no spares. But it could have been a real nightmare.
