Monday, August 20, 2007

Taking Things Literally


A friend was checking her children's weekly math test and was puzzled with her daughter's answers. There was an inconsistency she couldn't figure out. One of the word problems went like this: If the store is three miles away and you were to run there at three miles an hour, how long would it take you to reach the store? My friend's daughter had answered "0". When asked how she arrived at that answer, the girl replied indignantly, "I'm not going to run three miles!".


On a family vacation to Florida many many moons ago, before cars had air-conditioning, we kept seeing road signs proclaiming, "See the Fountain Of Youth in St Augustine". It explained that this was a 16th century discovery of Ponce De Leon. I immediately envisioned a Spanish Conquistador standing next to an ornate fountain selling samples of his discovery to road weary twentieth century travelers.

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