Either the switch from “we can’t get the budget or the resources!” to “how can we get the budget and the resources?” retains the essential meaning, or it doesn’t. Only the original speaker can know that for sure.
If it does, then I’d say the restatement is better. Not just because it’s polite, but because it’s efficient: we can now focus our energies on brainstorming ways to secure the funding and the resources to implement a good idea.
If it doesn’t—that is, if the original speaker didn’t think it was a worthwhile opportunity in the first place and doesn’t actually care about the funding or the resources—then I agree with you that the proposed restatement is a bad one… but the original wording kinda sucked, too. (Not least of which because it offered a false rejection.)
The speaker in that case would have done better to think clearly about their actual reasons for rejecting the idea, and then construct a polite expression of those reasons.
Just because you’re being rude doesn’t mean you’re communicating efficiently.
Either the switch from “we can’t get the budget or the resources!” to “how can we get the budget and the resources?” retains the essential meaning, or it doesn’t. Only the original speaker can know that for sure.
If it does, then I’d say the restatement is better. Not just because it’s polite, but because it’s efficient: we can now focus our energies on brainstorming ways to secure the funding and the resources to implement a good idea.
If it doesn’t—that is, if the original speaker didn’t think it was a worthwhile opportunity in the first place and doesn’t actually care about the funding or the resources—then I agree with you that the proposed restatement is a bad one… but the original wording kinda sucked, too. (Not least of which because it offered a false rejection.)
The speaker in that case would have done better to think clearly about their actual reasons for rejecting the idea, and then construct a polite expression of those reasons.
Just because you’re being rude doesn’t mean you’re communicating efficiently.