Excerpt of a conversation during our first departmental meeting of the semester:
Chair: Next item: suggested courses of actions for dealing with problems on campus this year. If there is an emergency — an emergent danger — get out of the building and dial 9-1-1 and report an emergency.
Professor X: An emergent danger?
Chair: Yeah. Fire. Hurricane. Plague of flesh-eating zombies. That kinda thing.
Professor X: Ah.
Chair: On the other hand, if it’s not an emergency, you know, an emergent danger, but if it’s just an implicit danger, still leave the building, but call the campus Physical Plant instead to report it.
Professor X: An implicit danger? How do you report that?
Me: [ Mimicking a phone call. ] “Hello? Physical Plant? I’d like to report an implicency.”
