yes, we _are_ geeks.

[baratron]

An amusing conversation from the other day (which I can now post, as meeping and gerwinium have been given their presents):
baratron: "Should I wrap Tim & Peter's t-shirts together with their calendar, or in separate parcels?"
wuzzie: "You should wrap them so there are an even number of packages, as there are an even number of Tims and Peters."
baratron: "Eh? There's an odd number of Tims and an odd number of Peters...?"
wuzzie: "Yes, but there's an even number of (Tims and Peters)."
baratron: "I don't think that's right. I think you mean there's an even number of (Tim and Peter)s."
wuzzie: "But there's only one (Tim and Peter)."
baratron: "Hrm. I'm still not happy with saying there's an even number of (Tims and Peters), though."
wuzzie: "OK. How about 'there's an even number of (Tims or Peters)'? As there is one Tim, who is a (Tim or Peter), and one Peter, who is a (Tim or Peter). So together there are two (Tims or Peters)."
baratron: "Hmm. I suppose that works."

(I wrapped the presents so that there were four packages, consistent with the even number of (Tims or Peters). But then I wrote the card for the two of them, which brought us back to an odd number. Oops.)

Comments

[baratron.livejournal.com]

We did actually manage to have that entire conversation without needing to explicitly state where the brackets should be, except when I was redrawing the (Tims and Peters) to (Tim and Peter)s. Hrm.