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Date:      Fri, 26 May 2000 06:13:28 +0530
From:      Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>
To:        Tim Vanderhoek <vanderh@ecf.utoronto.ca>
Cc:        Warner Losh <imp@village.org>, Kris Kennaway <kris@FreeBSD.ORG>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: cvs commit: src/games/fortune/datfiles fortunes
Message-ID:  <20000526061328.B16522@physics.iisc.ernet.in>
In-Reply-To: <20000525142717.B94114@mad>; from vanderh@ecf.utoronto.ca on Thu, May 25, 2000 at 02:27:18PM -0400
References:  <20000525030514.A86566@mad> <200005250438.VAA63650@freefall.freebsd.org> <Pine.BSF.4.21.0005250000130.81590-100000@freefall.freebsd.org> <20000525030514.A86566@mad> <200005251738.LAA85378@harmony.village.org> <20000525142717.B94114@mad>

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Tim Vanderhoek said on May 25, 2000 at 14:27:18:
> On Thu, May 25, 2000 at 11:38:30AM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> >
> > people actually say it:
> > 	two plus two is five for sufficiently large values of 2 or
> > 	small values of five.
> 
> No, it does not mirror how people actually say it:
> 
> --
> For large values of one, one equals two, for small values of two.

That is the version that I like best -- it sounds funniest to me.  
Maybe something to do with brevity and the punchline being at the end.


> --
> 
> If I had fixed it to mirror how peope actually say it, it would read:
> 
> --
> One equals two, for sufficiently large values of one or sufficiently
> small values of two.
> --
> 
> The way it will read, which everybody seems to like, is convoluted to
> barely inside the boundaries of English.
> 
> And don't blame that merely on being a math joke, since I've had
> enough exposure to math to know that, despite what some people may
> think, mathematicians do speak English.
> 
> However, far be it from me to stand in the way of other people's
> jokes.  :-)
> 
> If you want it to bear some resemblance to the formal statement of a
> theorem, you'd probably go with what I changed it to, though.  That's
> why I changed it the way I did.  Anyways.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Signature withheld by request of author.
> 
> 
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