My daughter says, "I'm a linguist, which means I like ambiguity more than most people." On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 1:23 PM, Tom Rokicki <rokicki@gmail.com> wrote:
Antecedents are fun too. Michael Genesereth shared this one in a class:
"He dropped an egg on the table and it broke."
On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 10:12 AM, Michael Kleber <michael.kleber@gmail.com> wrote:
Also, do people seldom say discouraging things, or is the word "seldom" heard as a discouraging word in and of itself?
--Michael
On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 1:01 PM, James Propp <jamespropp@gmail.com> wrote:
Okay, so who _else_ was annoyed as a child by the ambiguity of the phrase "and the skies are not cloudy all day"? (I mean, are the skies merely not cloudy-all-day, or are they actually not-cloudy all day?)
This has bothered me for as long as I can remember.
That's not exactly a mathematical issue, but part of the skill-set of the mathematician is knowing how to be extremely literal (whereas part of the deficit-set of many mathematicians is not knowing how not to be!).
Which reminds me of an idea I have an idea for a cartoon, captioned "Over-thinking preschooler", showing a toddler sitting in a circle playing a clapping game, thinking to himself "I'm happy, but do I know it?"
Jim
P.S. The juxtaposition of the words "Buffalo" and "roam" bothers me because Buffalo and Rome are both cities in New York state, but that's another thing entirely. _______________________________________________ math-fun mailing list math-fun@mailman.xmission.com http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/math-fun
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