So how old is Anne?
Mar. 7th, 2008 08:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcirvinSo recently this made the rounds (via someone on my friends list whose identity I have forgotten):
How old is Anne?
If this is, verbatim, how the problem was printed in the New York Press, the absence of a correct answer for the most common interpretation, and the ensuing grammatical gotcha, are probably why it led to a national controversy. So far, so stupid. The interesting thing is that, online, you can also find corrected versions of the problem that just turn it into a simple algebra problem:
This kind of post-hoc correction of trick riddles and shaggy-dog stories (if that's indeed what happened here) goes on a lot, but sometimes it works in the other direction, such as the "third common word that ends in -gry" riddle that (most likely) spontaneously transformed from a dumb but solvable trick question into an impossible puzzle with no real answer.
How old is Anne?
Reportedly this question inspired an ongoing national debate when it appeared in the New York Press in 1903:As printed (and as I think a commenter said on the LJ where I saw it), it can be interpreted as a stupid trick question about pronoun antecedents. If you work this out with algebra and assume that both instances of the "she" refer to Mary, you find pretty quickly that neither of the provided answers is correct. So if one of the answers is correct (as implied by "Which is correct?") then the second "she" must instead refer to Anne, and "as old as Anne was when Anne was as old as Anne is now" just means "as old as Anne is now" implying that Anne is 12. (But can we use the past tense "was" to refer to the present? And so on and so on...)
Brooklyn, October 12
Dear Tip:
Mary is 24 years old. She is twice as old as Anne was when she was as old as Anne is now. How old is Anne now? A says the answer is 16; B says 12. Which is correct?
John Mahon
I get a third answer. Perhaps it's time for another debate.
If this is, verbatim, how the problem was printed in the New York Press, the absence of a correct answer for the most common interpretation, and the ensuing grammatical gotcha, are probably why it led to a national controversy. So far, so stupid. The interesting thing is that, online, you can also find corrected versions of the problem that just turn it into a simple algebra problem:
So they come to the door tonight asking for a trick or a treat & obviously I give them a trick. (I posted this last year & two people handily answered it right. This is for them what didn't see it then.)Would it have really been so controversial in that form? Maybe, but I doubt it. It actually has an unambiguous solution.
Mary is 24.
She is twice as old
as Ann was when
Mary was as old as
Ann is now.
How old is Ann?
On October 16, 1903, The New York Press published this little word problem. It's dead easy, but the trick part is that it looks easier than it is.
The whole of north America knew of it in a few weeks & for decades later, the phrase "How old is Ann?" came to mean - "Yeah! And you've asked a ridiculously impossible question!" (As it were.)
This kind of post-hoc correction of trick riddles and shaggy-dog stories (if that's indeed what happened here) goes on a lot, but sometimes it works in the other direction, such as the "third common word that ends in -gry" riddle that (most likely) spontaneously transformed from a dumb but solvable trick question into an impossible puzzle with no real answer.