Keep possibilities distinct from established facts
Read for meaning first. Select a highlighted word if you want a closer look.
The committee's next explanation was speculative: perhaps a staff change had caused the booking messages to cross. That possibility had not been supported by a record or a conversation with the venue. It seemed improbable that every message from several organizers had disappeared independently, but low likelihood did not make the event impossible. For planning purposes, the team adopted the supposition that no booking was secure until a named contact confirmed it, treating that starting point as a provisional rule for its inquiry.
A speculative account could suggest a useful question without becoming the accepted history of the mix-up. The organizers kept the improbable possibility of several missing messages on their list until the available records ruled it out. Their supposition about confirmation helped them decide what to check first, but they remained willing to revise it if the venue described a different process. Each label marked a different issue: conjecture, likelihood, or something temporarily accepted without proof as a basis for reasoning.
Before you move on
Look away from the passage. Can you explain each focus word in your own words?
Original fictional passages for vocabulary practice.