the director of my office sent an email to our young, female center coordinator. in the message he meant to request the following.
i need you to please contact the editors of the following journals.
instead his email read
i need you to please the editors of the following journals.
when i arrived at the office, because of the dropped 'contact', the recipient of the message read the sentence to me, asking what she should do. before i had time to respond a graduate student in our space who overheard the question said, "the only proper response is to write back and ask if you can please them one at a time or have to please them all at once."
this was far more entertaining than anything i had planned.