michaeldavisonline/backward

I came across this "puzzler" the other day: What is half of two plus two? I got the answer right in about one fifth of
a second.

I couldn't figure out what was so "puzzling" about it until the writer claimed that most people think the answer is
two. That's wrong. Sure, if you add two plus two, you get four, and half of that equals two. But it never would have
occurred to me to figure it that way, because that's backward. If you do the math in order, half of two is one, and
then one plus two are three. If the question had been "what is half of the sum of two plus two?" then I would have
answered two like everyone else supposedly did.

I guess I can see how some people might get it wrong, but I was sure it wouldn't be "most people". I was "most
people" and "most people" would do it exactly as I did. To prove this, I took the question to work. Ha! Only two
out of the seven people who answered my email said three. I couldn't believe it. I wasn't "most people". I was one
of the"three people" and the "threes" were the weirdoes! Not only did the others come up with two, some had to
ask how it could possibly be three. And when I told them, they screamed and laughed and said that no normal
person would have understood the question that way.

It's not easy facing forward in a backward world. All you "threes" know exactly what I'm talking about. It's like
marching your whole life in a band where you're the only one who can see the drum major. You don't know whether
to follow the leader or follow the band, and it really doesn't matter anyway, because either way, you know you're
going to be out of step.

For example, when I worked in a newspaper classified advertising department, people would often call up and say, "I
want to take out an ad." Sometimes, that meant they wanted to put one in, so I never knew what to do. If I asked
and they wanted to put one in,they'd think I was a wise guy for correcting their "grammar". If I asked and they
really did want to cancel an ad that was already running, then they'd think I was a moron who couldn't understand
plain English.

Another way callers would drive me nuts was by telling me to type "backslashes" in their Web addresses. I think
people just like to say the word "backslash", because forward slashes are used most of the time. Rather than insult
their intelligence by asking them if they knew the difference between a slash and a backslash, I'd just roll my eyes
and test the addresses online. The backslashes have never worked.

Of course, I realize that"normal" people couldn't care less about trivial things like this. But several of them might
say that they "could care less" which has always struck me as extremely peculiar. Someone obviously has to care in
order for it to be possible to care less. So why do people say they could care less when they mean that they
couldn't? I guess that since I know what they mean that's all that should matter. But it's strange! To me, it's like
describing a phenomenal success as "hitting the ball in the park".

Another thing that used to confuse me was the adage, "You can't have your cake and eat it, too." I mean, I knew
what people meant by it. It's just that literally, it never made any sense to me. If a guy had cake, then why couldn't
he eat it?? Then I learned that the phrase originally went, "you can't eat your cake and have it, too" and the light
bulb flashed on. That made sense. Of course, you can no longer have it in your possession because, duh, you ate it!
It's gone. Finito. But backward, the saying makes no sense and everyone keeps acting like it does.

I don't even want to get in to a discussion about people who say they have to go to the bathroom to "take a dump".
That's the absolute last thing I'd ever want to take from somebody's bathroom.

I wish I knew why language was so mixed up, but I don't. I can't figure out why intelligent people don't feel weird
announcing that they're "head over heels" in love when presumably, that's where their heads were in the first place.

Communication might be a lot easier if it were logical and everyone followed the same rules. But guess what. It's not
and we don't. So, people will continue to say "take" when they mean "leave", "back" when they mean "forward"
and sometimes they'll end up with two when they ought to have three.

I hope I don't sound like I'm complaining, though.

I could care less.