Induction

One of those trucks which serve as mobile billboards sat at the kerbside as I went to buy some toilet paper (the Scott 1000-sheet rolls, since you ask – I’m an enthusiastic convert). This one was advertising Silver Reign. It said:

Free admission if you mention this truck.

Trying to imagine exactly how I would do the business of the mentioning, I settled on:

“I saw a truck which said that you give free admission if you mention it.”

Because of course no-one would just say: “I saw a truck with your ad on it.” That would sound lame, as if the speaker was just making small talk. The point isn’t just seeing the truck; it’s seeing what the truck had to say. It follows that what the truck is actually saying is something like:

Free admission if you mention that you saw this truck which offers free admission if you mention this truck.

It might then follow that the business of the mentioning properly goes something like:

“I saw a truck which said that you give free admission if you mention that you saw the truck which offers free admission if you mention the truck.”

In which case the implied message on the side of the truck is:

Free admission if you mention that you saw this truck which offers free admission if you mention that you saw this truck which offers free admission if you mention this truck.

And so on and so forth, until the writing became so small that you wouldn’t see the ad anyway. Yes, this is what I thought when I saw the ad. What I didn’t think was: “Wow! Free admission to Silver Reign!”