Reminder to buy my book. I will be forever grateful.
Equivocal- open to interpretation; ambiguous
Ex: Has anyone else struggled to make sense of those yellow road signs with a black silhouette of a truck going down a decline, with a seemingly arbitrary percentage underneath it? That’s got to be the most equivocal sign out there. What could the “12%” mean? There’s a 12% chance that your truck loses control and tumbles and flips down the hill? Only 12% of trucks are built to handle this treacherous descent? Only 12% of truck drivers have made it down this slope and lived to tell the tale? Maybe if you do make it down that stretch of road, there’s a 12% chance that there will be a Cumberland Farms that sells Van Holten’s Big Papa Hearty Dill Pickles, the extra wide dill that comes in the plastic pouch.
Bonus stage for your readers: The Importance of Equivocation to the Scottish Play! https://thebillshakespeareproject.com/2016/06/macbeth-and-equivocation/
(In-link usage: "Their first warning is unequivocal: Beware Macduff. Simple. Straightforward. And because of that, it becomes equivocal, as it sets up the listener to believe that what follows is just as simple and true.")
what can I say, I dig the Macbeth
We have similar signs here in the UK just different colours. Your sign looks like a pie chart. 16% of all trucks can go down hill 😄