The Borehole Notice: Pronoun Reference and Focus
At a secondary school in Limbe, the water committee posts a handwritten notice beside the only borehole. It reads: 'Students must not waste water. They say the tank is low. Only fill your bottles when the tap is closed. If the tap is left running, it will be locked. Students who disobey will be reported to the discipline master and their names will be pasted on the board.' The school has 620 students and one 5,000-litre tank; water is pumped on Tuesdays and Fridays. A prefect says students ignore the notice because 'it is confusing.' The committee asks you to revise the notice for clarity without changing its rules. The notice is 52 words long and must fit on one A4 sheet; no new rule may be added.
1. Identify two unclear references in the notice and explain what each could mean.
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They say the tank is low has no stated antecedent. They could be the water committee, the school administration, or even students repeating a rumour. A notice should name the authority: The water committee says.... If the tap is left running, it will be locked uses it for an unclear object. It could refer to the tap, the tank, or the borehole. Locking a tap is odd; locking the tank or the borehole is more plausible but not stated. The sentence also leaves open who will lock it. Rewrite as If a student leaves the tap running, the committee will lock the tank. Clear reference is not a cosmetic issue: students ignore a rule they cannot confidently interpret.
2. Rewrite the notice in no more than 60 words without adding or removing rules.
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WATER NOTICE. The water committee says the tank is low. Do not waste water. Fill your bottles only when the tap is closed. Anyone who leaves the tap running will have the tank locked. Offenders will be reported to the discipline master and their names will be pasted on the notice board. This version keeps all four rules: no waste, fill only when the tap is closed, the tank will be locked if a tap is left running, and offenders will be reported and named. It replaces They with The water committee, replaces the ambiguous it with the tank, and moves only so that it restricts the condition rather than the verb. The wording is shorter and has one instruction per sentence.
3. Explain how moving 'only' in 'Only fill your bottles when the tap is closed' changes the meaning.
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Only fill your bottles when the tap is closed places only before the verb, so it can suggest that filling bottles is the sole permitted action. Fill your bottles only when the tap is closed places only before the condition, which is the intended rule: the tap must be closed at the moment of filling. A third placement, Fill only your bottles when the tap is closed, restricts the object: bottles, not buckets or jerrycans, may be filled. The committee's intended meaning is the second. Because only is a focusing adverb, its position changes which element is restricted; a notice should put it immediately before that element.