10/22/03’s illustrious band:

The Hippo in the Office

Brought to you by Senor Editor.

Senor Editor is an editor, and therefore a language person rather than a math person. And that’s the way he likes it. However, today he ran into a situation he thought he’d never encounter: needing, in the course of his editorial work, to employ the Pythagorean Theorem.

To review: Senor knew the length of two sides of a right triangle (a triangle in which one of the angles is a right angle) and needed to find the length of the third, diagonal side, the hypotenuse -- or, as he calls it, the hippopotamus. So it was time to trot out the dusty old “a squared plus b squared = c squared” formula. It worked, but he wasn’t happy about it.

I feel the same way when, as a history avoider, I’m forced to look up historical-type facts in the line of duty. Like the spelling of Pythagoras.

Another close encounter of the numeric kind: Last night I attended a birthday party where many humorous gifts were given. Among the best was a book titled Would You Rather . . . ?” It was full of ridiculous choices, such as:

Would you rather . . .

• . . . become increasingly intelligent as you consumed more alcohol, but also increasingly convinced you were Gloria Estefan?
  OR
  . . . completely understand Roman numerals, but also look exactly like Weird Al Yankovich?

  
  

• . . . be hole-punched to death?
  OR
  . . . be eaten alive by the cast of Dif’rent Strokes?

  
  

• . . . be stoned to death by pickles?
  OR
  . . . be submerged in mayonnaise until you drowned?

  
  

Yeah, great literature. A lot of the choices revolved around having a really cool ability of some kind but also being saddled with an embarrassing tic or appearance; most of the rest were about sex. The “Ginger or MaryAnn?” question was by far the tamest of those, and offered the unusual choice between two desirable alternatives.

So, would you rather . . .
. . . have a photographic memory but know a lot of really, really ugly people?
OR
. . . have ESP but live in Washington, D.C.?

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