the meaning of appointment in "Richard is Sally's appointment."

[Sweetpumpkin]

Hello,

What's the meaning of appointment in "Richard is Sally's appointment"?
Does it mean "Richard has an appointment with Sally"?
I have no idea of what it means. Please help me!

Thank you in advance,
sweetpumpkin

[Benjamin]

Hi Sweet,
It is a bit of a strange one. By itself it is hard to work out exactly what it means. To be honest it could mean a couple of things.

Can you give us more of the text?

But just from what you've told us...
"Sally's appointment" suggests that Sally has the appointment. So I would say that "Sally has an appointment with Richard."

But, for example, if Sally is a doctor, then she would have regular appointment's with patients. She might ask "who is my next appointment?" to the receptionist. in this case, Richard would be Sally's appointment.

I hope that I have cleared it up in a small way but you are right. It is very confusing about who is what.
The only thing that is certain is that Richard and Sally are going to meet.

[Molly]

[Barb_D]

This is why context is so important. It could also be that Sally was able to appoint someone to a committee, board, etc., and Richard is the person Sally appointed (while Michael is the person appointed by Jim, etc.)

[Sweetpumpkin]

Oh, the sentence has many possible meanings. Thank you all guys for your attentions. I'm sorry about not giving the context. The sentence is from a handout I was given. It is about the verb 'appoint' and has a conversation in which Sally invited Richard to her place; they made an appointment. Then the sentence is brought up as an example of appoint(ment). By your kind explanations, I could conclude that "Richard is Sally' s appointment" certainly means "Richard has an appointment with Sally".

[Molly]

[Sweetpumpkin]

To Molly,

Thank you for your attention. I think your reasoning from what I said before is reasonable. Actually, I forgot mentioning again that Richard and Sally are related by their work. In other words, they are not romantically involved in the context. Richard comes from another country. Sally is... kind of being in charge of taking care of him. She just wants him to experience and taste her culture, having dinner with her family. Well, I have to be careful of explaining fully when asking here a meaning of words next time.

[Molly]