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I have a school excursion coming up. Looking through the plan of events I came across a confusing sentence under the section for breakfast.

Breakfast (9 - 10:30AM)

  • Poori Ras Aloo
  • Toast Butter & Jam
  • Scrambled / Boiled Eggs (any one) *
  • Kellogs Chocos with Milk
  • Cut Fruits (Papaya / Water Melon / Musk Melon)
  • Pls note Omelettes are avoidable due to high dispensation time

What does the italicised part mean?

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    My guess is that "avoidable" and "dispensation" are used incorrectly. What they are trying to say is that they are unable/unwilling to serve omelettes because they have to be prepared freshly, and that takes an excessive time.
    – JavaLatte
    Commented Oct 25 at 1:09
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    Perhaps "avoidable" is meant to be "available" and got autocorrupted. Given it's an hour and a half, there's probably time; they do not take that long. But "high dispensation time" does not have a plausible corruption that I can think of.
    – Mary
    Commented Oct 25 at 1:47
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    Somehow "unavailable" became "avoidable" and "dispensation time" is cooking time. So the full sentence means - Omelettes are unavailable due to time constraints.
    – James Mathai
    Commented Oct 25 at 10:57
  • Probably translated literally from the author's mother tongue to English. The sentence is indeed weird. By the way, how many students are expected to go? Twenty or 100? That you know of is there one cook, two or an entire team?
    – Mari-Lou A
    Commented Oct 25 at 16:18
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    @gidds You'd be right, I am from India. However, even i cannot understand what "Poori Ras Aloo" is supposed to mean :).
    – Coder9390
    Commented Oct 26 at 2:05

2 Answers 2

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Omelettes are avoidable due to high dispensation time.

The sentence is unclear, but I don't think the person is trying to say something that has been decided. If omelettes are already out, they wouldn't even appear on the menu and be subjected to all these qualifications. The person likely is trying to say Omelettes may be removed if the program on that day turns out tight.

A wrong choice of verb leads to Omelettes may be avoided.

An attempt to convert that to Omelettes are avoidable leads to that confusing statement.

Edit

Due to the bad writing it is in, the menu can be interpreted in so many ways, as our fellow users have contributed.

Also possible is this:

The person is just trying to say

Omelettes are avoided ...

but has used the wrong word avoidable. In this case, omelettes are not an option.

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  • Seems like they confused different senses of "may": allowance versus possibility
    – Barmar
    Commented Oct 25 at 15:06
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    The footnote about omelettes is in relation to the line about eggs. I don't think it's saying that omelettes are or ever were an option; they are clarifying. Someone might think that the presence of eggs as an option would mean that omelettes would also be an option, but this is clarifying that omelettes won't be possible because they take much longer to prepare than scambled/boiled eggs.
    – GentlePurpleRain
    Commented Oct 25 at 18:38
  • Also, the use of "any one" instead of "either one" and "cut fruits" instead of "cut fruit" (among other things), makes it pretty clear that the person writing this is not a native speaker. So there was obviously just a wrong choice of word, and the intention was to say that omelettes will not be available.
    – GentlePurpleRain
    Commented Oct 25 at 18:40
  • Thanks, @GentlePurpleRain. You're right; omelettes may not even be an option. I've added this point.
    – Seowjooheng Singapore
    Commented Oct 25 at 22:01
  • I think this answer is correct as I strongly believe omelettes are a choice that they offer but given the time constraints they may stop offering them. This makes sense as all the students will be reporting for breakfast at the same time, making it difficult for them to keep track of live orders like omelettes. A system where they serve food made beforehand is more efficient
    – Coder9390
    Commented Oct 26 at 2:37
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This is a very odd sentence. Perhaps it's acceptable in some dialect spoken in India, but I have frequent contact with Indian subcontinent speakers of English and I would sooner guess that the writer is not a native speaker.

If I had to guess, I would take "avoidable" to be a mistaken equivalent of "to be avoided", in this case meaning "we have decided not to offer them".

Then I would take "dispensation time" to mean "the time required to (prepare and) serve".

In other words, omelettes aren't offered because they take too long to serve.

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