Yesterday afternoon, I got this interesting email message:
The departure time for US Airways flight # 3314, from Detroit to Philadelphia on May 11 at 6:05 PM has changed. The flight is delayed due to air traffic at the destination airport. Your estimated time of Departure is 6:05 PM.
6:05 PM was the originally scheduled departure time, so this communication puzzled me. Then I read an earlier email, which by the last-in-first-out logic of email queues came later in my list of pending messages:
The departure time for US Airways flight # 3314, from Detroit to Philadelphia on May 11 at 6:05 PM has changed. The flight is delayed due to air traffic at the destination airport. Your estimated time of Departure is 6:40 PM.
It's easy to guess the algorithm that led to this sequence. But I'm at a loss for terminology. Is there a word for a silly or meaningless communication, generated in a specific class of circumstances by an algorithm that normally generates sensible messages?
Update — I should add the the flight did leave on time, and that I was happy to have been told that there would be a delay, and then that there wouldn't be a delay. But it's interesting that there's no "never mind" message template.
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