I just came across the "Divide 50 by half..." riddle-meme today.
Please don't fall for these. Please don't participate in them. Please just let them die in peace.
- It's a language riddle, not an arithmetic one.
- Specifically, it's a language riddle that tests one of the most difficult, annoying, and subtle parts of most languages: how to use prepositions correctly.
- It's designed to make some people feel smart and others feel stupid, even though intelligence has nothing at all to do with it.
It has perhaps one redeeming quality: it reminds us that languages evolve and that we need to struggle to make ourselves understood and therefore ought to have more compassion for those moments where they fail to understand what we intend to convey.
And that prepositions are arbitrary and confusing.
We're all in this together, folks. Don't volunteer to be pitted against one another like this.
Be excellent to each other.
PS: The wording "divide 50 by half" is clearly and deliberately ambiguous. If we truly mean "divide 50 by 0.5", then we typically say "divide... by *one* half" and if we truly mean "divide 50 by 2", then we typically use another verb, such as "_reduce_... by half". That's it.
PPS: In case English is not your native language, "divide X in half" = "divide by 2", while "divide X by half" = "divide by 1/2" and this is the same as multiplying by 2. That's the entire riddle.
/fin
J. B. Rainsberger (he)
Dave W Smith
The Long Tail
Dale Emery
Richard W. Woodley ELBOWS UP 🇨🇦🌹🚴♂️📷 🗺️