There was a sailor who worked on the same boat for three
years. One night he got drunk. This was the first time it ever happened. The
captain recorded it in the log, "The sailor was drunk tonight." The
sailor read it, and he knew this comment would affect his career, so he went to
the captain, apologized and asked the captain to add that it only happened once
in three years which was the complete truth.
The captain refused and said,
"What I have written in the log is the truth." The next day it was
the sailor's turn to fill in the log. He wrote, "The captain was sober
tonight." The captain read the comment and asked the sailor to change or
add to it explaining the complete truth because this implied that the captain
was drunk every other night. The sailor told the captain that what he had
written in the log was the truth.
Both statements were true but they conveyed misleading
messages;
