Having been bombarded by multiple questions at once, Strange takes his answers one at a time.

"No, a man under a hedge sold me a spell, and I haven't the foggiest. I think of it as words being the specifics but the magic itself being the request."

This makes no damn sense, but at least from Strange's expression, it makes sense to him. After all, someone can just ask a tree to do something but unless there's magic put behind the words, the tree might not listen.