Sitting at a 4 legged table at 1 grandmother, 2 mothers, 2 daughters, and 1 granddaughter. How many legs are under the table?

The "correct" answer is 3 women, 10 legs.

[grandmother/mother] [mother/daughter] [daughter/granddaugther]

But that's now how people work. Everyone is a grandchild and a child. So that would look like this...

[grandmother/mother/daughter/granddaughter] [mother/daughter/granddaughter] [daughter/granddaughter]

1 grandmother, 2 mothers, 3 daughters, and 3 granddaughters.

You can't have fractional people, so the riddle only works if these are the very first human women in existence...





fiddlesticks.

Last edited by jkahless on Mon Jun 01, 2020 4:18 pm.

Also, people have 2 legs...

WTF, all of them are daughters and all of them are granddaughters, so you can discount that. The grandmother is also a mother.

So there are 2 mothers.

Plus the table has 4 legs.

Therefore 8 legs, minimum.

Who wrote this drek?

Could be a bistro table with one leg. And the two ladies have one each. So three is a possibility.

macaddict4life posted:

Also, people have 2 legs...

Sorry

3 women 10 legs.

Could have been female cockroaches.

Do the chairs have legs?

Wait, was this how many legs, or how many ladies?

Oh God, the irony of my hastily written rage post is not lost on me.

The riddle asks how many legs.

The riddle should have said “the fewest number of legs”

That way the (mother,grandmother)/(daughter, mother)/(granddaughter, daughter) thing would have worked better.

Warin posted:

The riddle should have said “the fewest number of legs”

That way the (mother,grandmother)/(daughter, mother)/(granddaughter, daughter) thing would have worked better.

Yes and no. "The answer is four, the number of legs of the table. The grandmother suffers from a congenital condition that stopped the growth of her legs, and that condition was passed onto her daughter and granddaughter."

It reminds me of this goofy diversity book I had as a child. I think it was written in the 70s.

It was trying to celebrate similarities and had pages like, "Everyone has eyes! Everyone has legs!"

I very much was against writing in books, but little me crossed those lines out and wrote, "No they don't!"

Warin posted:

The riddle should have said “the fewest number of legs”

That way the (mother,grandmother)/(daughter, mother)/(granddaughter, daughter) thing would have worked better.

Ah, but then you could solve it with two women. (Grandmother/mother/daughter)+(mother/daughter/granddaughter)

...

Usually when an obvious detail is pointed out as a defining feature, it's because there's implied context that makes it have a stronger relevance then the default. If you talk about a dying man, you don't usually say it to mean how everyone dies eventually and nobody is immortal, but to mean that man is fatally injured or ill.

Are you still a grandchild if your grandparents are dead? Technically yes, but that is no longer the primary context people see you as - unless they had a very close connection to your grandparents.

Therefore, without any additional context as to the family members related to these women, we can assume the grandmother/mother/daughter/granddaughter are all in context to how the women are related to each other. Then the number of woman collapses to an old woman who is the mother of a younger woman who is the mother of an even younger woman. Thus three woman. And without additional context provided, we must assume the statistical mean that these woman have two legs each, giving us six legs, plus the four legged table (again statistical mean if it wasn't explicitly defined) gives us ten legs.


...jeeze you people overthink things.

Future Dreams posted:

...

Usually when an obvious detail is pointed out as a defining feature, it's because there's context that makes it have a stronger relevance then the default. If you talk about a dying man, you don't usually say it to mean how everyone dies eventually and nobody is immortal, but to mean that man is fatally injured or ill.

Are you still a grandchild if your grandparents are dead? Technically yes, but that is no longer the primary context people see you as - unless they had a very close connection to your grandparents.

Therefore, without any additional context as to the family members related to these women, we can assume the grandmother/mother/daughter/granddaughter are all in context to how the women are related to each other. Then the number of woman collapses to an old woman who is the mother of a younger woman who is the mother of an even younger woman. Thus three woman. And with no additional context we can assume the statistical mean that these woman have two legs each, giving us six legs, plus the four legged table (again statistical mean if it wasn't explicitly defined) gives us ten legs.


...jeeze you people overthink things.

You’re making some pretty wild assumptions as to their relationship with each other. Though it does simplify things if we name the grandmother Eve. Then the math works out.

Well then I bow to your clearly superior understanding of the subject.