Agriculture

Last week after I pondered culling my two oldest ewes for the benefit of the rest of the flock, my friend Steve excitedly texted: “I love the sheep trolley problem…. But it doesn’t mean as much if you don’t really pull in each character. Really calculate the consequences. .. Describe the young healthy sheep. What do you owe them? Describe the older sheep. How much do you love them? Weigh their lives in front of us. Let us see it… I say trolley problem the shit out of it all next week.” Steve is passionate about the written word, and has spent most of his working life writing and editing. But he dictates, rather than types, his texts, which sometimes mangles words. The first time I read the term “sheep trolley problem” I figured the software had transformed some complicated word into a nonsensical expression, and that the meaning would eventually become clear. The second time, several texts later, I was still mystified, so I asked “what is being transcribed as trolley problem?” Steve became equally mys