[balnaphone]

> "who was the president when JFK was born?", the answer is clearly not JFK

Yes, you can deduce that, since the question is nonsensical (trivial) if "the president" refers to JFK in that context.

> If you flip it to "was JFK strong at writing essays when the president was a high school freshman"

This is a perfect illustration of why the original sentence can be read as referring to JFK, since in speech it is common to have ill-defined references that are later clarified, and there's no formal rule that enforces that all terms must be defined before use.

[notahacker]

> This is a perfect illustration of why the original sentence can be read as referring to JFK, since in speech it is common to have ill-defined references that are later clarified, and there's no formal rule that enforces that all terms must be defined before use.

References that are later clarified is exactly how we arrive at "the president when JFK was born" as defining Woodrow Wilson as the object of the sentence (and it makes much more sense to ask about how tall President Wilson was in the context of 1917 than to wonder how "tall" baby "president" JFK was in 1917).

Whereas "when the president was a high school freshman" can't be used to identify anybody else [unless there is a time period in which a high school freshman was the president!], even if the sentence hadn't already made it clear that JFK was the object of the sentence. But it's still an example of bad writing.

Even when there's no ambiguity, we don't do sentences like "The SpaceX founder was about 18 inches tall when Elon Musk was born" which is basically how you're implying the president question - which has a much more reasonable alternative interpretation - could be answered...

It is possible to write a truly ambiguous sentence in English; nobody is arguing otherwise. But whilst the original sentence might make you think a bit, it's not naturally interpreted as being equally/more likely to be a question about the not-tall not-president in the context of the time period instead of the person with height and presidency in the context of the time period, unless you're being obtuse or lack fluency in the language.

[balnaphone]

I wrote:

> "Was the president strong at writing essays when JFK was a high school freshman? Read this essay to find out!"

You write:

> "when the president was a high school freshman"

These are very different circumstances, of course.

If the original sentence had "reigning" before the word "president", then I would absolutely agree with the given interpretation.

I've noticed that Americans call ex-presidents "president", and ex-governors "governor", so that merely adds to the confusion. English is not my native language, and I'm not American, so perhaps I fall into the "lack fluency" category. Conferring with other native speakers nearby, every American immediately reads it as intended, whereas Brits and Canadians do not.

I conclude that the original sentence is poorly written, and that I misread it.