Is Mathematical pedanticism allowed in here?

[CouldIBEAnyMoreChaotic]

"Out of every £5 you spend £1 goes to the government."

Erm, no.

(Seen on a leaflet justifying price-hikes at a Cafe today.)

[cross]

[WhatsWrongWithYou]

Er no it doesn't, does it?

[StealthPolarBear]

Can I just point out the word is 'pedantry'?

But anyway, I love maths pedantry! Something was bothering me earlier...ermmm

[HerdOfTinyElephants]

Q. Two cats sat on a roof. Which one fell off first?
A. The one with the smaller mu [mew -- this one works better spoken than written]

Q. What do you get if you cross a sheep with a goat?
A. sheep goat sin theta

I thank you...

[StealthPolarBear]

I hate "save half price" and it's taken me ages to figure out why.
"Half price" is not a numeric value. "Save half", "Save 50%", all fine. "Save half price" is cobbling together "Save half of the price" and "half price" - why? Just "Half price" would be fine. DFS are particular culprits

[ChippingIn]

Sorry - should have explained more what I was thinking I guess. I'm an accountant - I do know you can have a percentage greater than 100

I just meant that saying 'I always give 110%' - really really really bugs me because you cannot give more than 100% effort. You can give more effort than you normally would to something - you can give the full 100% - but you cannot give more than 100% effort.

[CouldIBEAnyMoreChaotic]

Stealth.

Sigh.

Language evloves dontcha know?

Pendanticism will be common usage soon.

£5?

[Tianc]

Ahem
Q. What do you get if you cross a sheep with a goat?
A. sheep goat sin theta n-hat.


Q. What do you get if cross a mountain with a mountaineer?
A. You can't. A mountaineer's a scaler [ scalar].

[TrillianAstra]

How about "For every £5 that you spend, you have to give us another £1 which the government will take (and spend on roads and police officers and hospitals and other useful stuff)"

[CouldIBEAnyMoreChaotic]

Catchy.

[jackstarb]

There are two groups of people in the world; those who believe that the world can be divided into two groups of people, and those who don't.

[monoid]

Q. What's purple and commutative?

A. An abelian grape

[musttidyupmusttidyup]

e to the x was at a party ,sitting alone in the kitchen. his friend lnx came in and tried to persuade him to join in a bit. 'Go on e to the x - integrate' he said. 'there's no point' said e to the x. 'it won't make any difference'.

[StealthPolarBear]

look you lot these are utterly dreadful. give up now

[oldenoughtowearpurple]

ROLF!

[meditrina]

DH was asked at work what percentage of his staff were above average. Interlocutor was a bit peed off when he said "50 of course".

[StealthPolarBear]

depends which average - but I agree the mean is what people tend to mean by "average"

[Oakmaiden]

My father always says "You mjust remember, Oak, that half the people in this country are below average intelligence."

Drives me nuts, because "average intelligence" is between the 25-75 centiles, which means only 25% are below average, and 25% are above average.

[theyoungvisiter]

actually the mean wouldn't necessarily mean 50% were above it - it would be the median which would necessarily mean that exactly 50% were above it.

As an eg of this, 99% of people have more than the average number of legs.

But I agree with meditrina's husband's answer - a stupid question deserves an equally stupid answer

[theyoungvisiter]

Although actually, even the median wouldn't necessarily mean that 50% of people were above it, since several people could be exactly on the median which would mean that the group above it could be smaller.

oakmaiden - that depends how you define average intelligence.

Average intelligence could be defined any number of ways - who says it's the 25th-75th centile?

[StealthPolarBear]

ugh ermm

[StealthPolarBear]

yes OK youre right I think

1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
10

mean=1.9
so 9 below, 1 above
it's been a long time since I've done this :)

[StealthPolarBear]

agree with you about 25-75, what a strange definition! WOuld you say someone on 74th percentile isn't above average?

[theyoungvisiter]

heh heh, I think a true pedant's answer to the "above average" question would be, "Using which definition of average?"

[prism]

A mathematician, an engineer and a philosopher were on a train in China. They saw a black pig out of the window.

"Look," said the engineer. "Pigs in China are black."

"Ahem," said the philosopher, "I think what you mean is that there is at least one black pig in China."

"You're both wrong," said the mathematician, "The fact is that there is at least one pig in China at least half of which is black."

[Tianc]

A mathematician, a physicist and an astronomer are on a London-Edinburgh train. As they cross the border, the astronomer catches sight of a lone sheep on the hillside.

"Oh look," he says. "In Scotland, the sheep are black."

"No, no," cries the physicist. "In Scotland, some sheep are black."

The mathematician sighs deeply. "In Scotland," she says, enunciating slowly, "there is at least one sheep, at least one side of which is black."
_

I am unreasonably fond of this one, as I did once find myself crossing the border in a group including a mathematician, a physicist and an astronomer engineer.

Only one laughed.