What do these sentences mean?

[DT4K]

"The officers of the association shall be a President, a Vice President, a Secretary and a Treasurer. Any two or more offices, may be held by the same person except the offices of President and Secretary."

Two interpretations here:
A - no person can serve as both president and secretary at the same time, but any other combination is allowed.
B - whoever is serving as the president cannot hold any other position at the same time and whoever is serving as secretary cannot hold any other position at the same time.

In other words, someone can obviously not serve as both president and secretary, but can someone serve as both president and treasurer at the same time?

EDIT: No, this isn't an english question from a quiz. It's a quote from a governing document of our HOA and there is some debate among the homeowners as to which interpretation is correct.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

no. "whoever is serving as the president cannot hold any other position at the same time "

 

[FoBoT]

i think it means the pres. and the sec. positions have to be their sole positions, and the others may be combined

i am not a lawyer, but i did stay at a holiday inn express last night (ok , it wasn't last night, it was back in December, but still...)

 

[homercles337]

Well, the grammar of your quoted sentences are wrong (did you type that correctly?), but the way i read it option B is correct.

Edit: Pres and Secretary are two separate people. A third can be both Vice and Treasurer. A fourth would split the Vice and Treasurer positions.

 

[KeithTalent]

I read it as option B.

KT

 

[Ns1]

reworded

the same person may hold any two or more offices, except the offices of president and secretary

that's my interpretation

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: homercles337
Well, the grammar of your quoted sentences are wrong (did you type that correctly?), but the way i read it option B is correct.

I typed it exactly as it appears in our articles of incorporation.

For the record, I believe A is the correct interpretation.

To me,
"Any two or more offices, may be held by the same person except the offices of President and Secretary."
means the same thing as:
No person may hold the offices of President and Secretary.

For some reason, I'm having vague recollections of my Discrete Structures class and the way we did logical reasoning like that. But this is english in an legal document that we are talking about and I'm not an english major or a lawyer.

 

[Nitemare]

C?

 

[Kelemvor]

I read it as the Pres can't be the Secretary but could be something else. However that wouldn't make sense since the Pres can't also be the Vice Pres. At least that' bd stupid if he could so upon reading it a few more times, I'd change my vote that the Pres can't be anything else...

 

[imported_Baloo]

For A to be correct, the sentence needs much better clarification. As is, the only clear meaning is that neither the president nor the secretary may whole another office at the same time.

 

[calvinbiss]

Its not speaking to the people, its speaking to the offices, therefore A.

 

[Ns1]

Originally posted by: DT4K

Originally posted by: homercles337
For some reason, I'm having vague recollections of my Discrete Structures class and the way we did logical reasoning like that. But this is english in an legal document that we are talking about and I'm not an english major or a lawyer.

evidently neither was the guy who drafted that.

 

[RKS]

Originally posted by: DT4K
...

EDIT: No, this isn't an english question from a quiz. It's a quote from a governing document of our HOA and there is some debate among the homeowners as to which interpretation is correct.

That is some confusing language. If it went to court it would be construed against the writer (HOA).


Edit: Since there is no 'plain meaning' is there any way to determine the 'intent' of the HOA?

 

[mugs]

It's ambiguous, so it's really impossible to say for sure.

But my interpretation is A, because if it were B then they might as well have just said the VP can be the Treasurer. That's the only combination that is left when you eliminate the president and secretary.

But it also doesn't make much sense that the president can be the vice president.

Edit: Also, it says any two or more offices may be held by the same person, and it's impossible to have more than two if you exclude the president and the secretary.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

This is a retarded question. As it's written, either could be correct, but it makes more sense for it to be A. If B were correct, then the only positions that could be combined would be VP and Treasurer, in which case why not just say the VP and treasurer positions are the only positions that can be combined. However, it doesn't make sense for someone to be both President and VP, so that makes B seem correct. But I don't know what the duties of the officers are; it may be completely different than what my notion of Presidents and VPs do.

I voted A. B makes slightly less sense.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: calvinbiss
Its not speaking to the people, its speaking to the offices, therefore A.

It's not speaking to either, it's speaking about them.

I hate that phrase.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Atomic Playboy
This is a retarded question. As it's written, either could be correct, but it makes more sense for it to be A. If B were correct, then the only positions that could be combined would be VP and Treasurer, in which case why not just say the VP and treasurer positions are the only positions that can be combined. However, it doesn't make sense for someone to be both President and VP, so that makes B seem correct. But I don't know what the duties of the officers are; it may be completely different than what my notion of Presidents and VPs do.

I voted A. B makes slightly less sense.

That's funny. We both posted more or less the exact same thing, in the same order, but in entirely different words, 1 minute apart.

 

[Skeeedunt]

When you guys are done arguing about lawn ornaments you should put together a mock UN and invade Lithuania.

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: calvinbiss
Its not speaking to the people, its speaking to the offices, therefore A.

This is the way I looked at it. But other posters are right that it should be assumed that the president cannot also be the vice president, since one of the duties the VP has is to act as president when the president isn't available. So in that case, it seems like B would be the correct interpretation.

Originally posted by: Ns1

Originally posted by: DT4K

Originally posted by: homercles337
For some reason, I'm having vague recollections of my Discrete Structures class and the way we did logical reasoning like that. But this is english in an legal document that we are talking about and I'm not an english major or a lawyer.

evidently neither was the guy who drafted that.

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it was written by lawyers. Or at least it was reviewed by lawyers. It's from the articles of incorporation for our HOA.

 

[DT4K]

One bit of additional info for those who brought up the fact that only the VP and treasurer could be combined:
There's also language that allows the board of directors to create additional offices if they want. So right now, it's just 4 positions but it could be more than that in the future.

 

[homercles337]

Originally posted by: mugs
It's ambiguous, so it's really impossible to say for sure.

This is the only answer that is correct. This is such a poorly written sentence, but i deconstructed it and either works. The meaning can easily be clarified with just the addition of one word or the removal of a prepositional phrase.

 

[ViviTheMage]

good thing we have a lawyer in our association, when we first created our association, she helped us out

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Skeeedunt
When you guys are done arguing about lawn ornaments you should put together a mock UN and invade the Oak Crest Heights development.

More reasonable

 

[kranky]

Originally posted by: mugs
It's ambiguous, so it's really impossible to say for sure.

But my interpretation is A, because if it were B then they might as well have just said the VP can be the Treasurer. That's the only combination that is left when you eliminate the president and secretary.

But it also doesn't make much sense that the president can be the vice president.

Edit: Also, it says any two or more offices may be held by the same person, and it's impossible to have more than two if you exclude the president and the secretary.

Good logical analysis, I have to go with this interpretation.

 

[DT4K]

Originally posted by: kranky

Originally posted by: mugs
It's ambiguous, so it's really impossible to say for sure.

But my interpretation is A, because if it were B then they might as well have just said the VP can be the Treasurer. That's the only combination that is left when you eliminate the president and secretary.

But it also doesn't make much sense that the president can be the vice president.

Edit: Also, it says any two or more offices may be held by the same person, and it's impossible to have more than two if you exclude the president and the secretary.

Good logical analysis, I have to go with this interpretation.

That all makes sense, but I pointed out that there could be more offices created in the future, so it is possible that there would eventually be more combinations beyond vp and treasurer.