Fair warning: this is not a report upon which you should rearrange your stock portfolio.  Please don’t even bet anyone a significant amount of money.  Just the same, Carol Bartz appears to have given a hint that she’s interested in acquiring Yelp.

Brian Womack recently interviewed Bartz, and at one point, asked her about buying the site known for its fast-growing collection of local reviews.  Bartz, who is in turn known for speaking plainly, didn’t give a "yes" or "no" (or "heck yes" or "heck no") answer.

Instead, Yahoo’s CEO said, "Local is extremely important.  People do some outrageous percentage of their commercial spending five miles from their home."  Which kind of sounds like "that’s a good idea."

Of course, even if Bartz had answered in the affirmative, the odds don’t favor anything happening.  Late last year, the rumor mill indicated that Google trying to acquire Yelp, and if Google’s popularity and deeper pockets couldn’t secure a deal, it’s hard to imagine Yahoo succeeding.

So again, this isn’t a concrete, "Yahoo will acquire Yelp" announcement so much as an exercise in parsing CEO’s sentences.  Hat tip goes to Jay Yarow.

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