r/SubredditDrama • u/tinyOnion • Jul 21 '16
Rare Riddles gets feisty over the definition of a hole.
/r/riddles/comments/4tu00s/it_takes_three_men_three_days_to_dig_a_hole/d5ki7j710
u/DoopSlayer Jul 21 '16
That sub seems cool, but that subreddit style is hideous.
Also what's the answer... cause you cant dig half of an indeterminate hole, cause that is just a hole
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u/_PM_Me_Stuff Jul 22 '16
For example you may say there's no such thing as half a word. What about a person? If I chop your girlfriend in half, do you not have half a girlfriend? Or do you have no girlfriend? Well I think if you can put make-up on her and still have oral I think you have half a girlfriend- some might argue more
wat
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u/riemann1413 Jul 21 '16
poor communication is not a riddle
those kind of 'riddles' are stupid
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u/KillerPotato_BMW Jul 21 '16
What has it got in its pocketses?
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u/riemann1413 Jul 21 '16
why don't you reach in there and find out, big boy
really root around for a minute
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u/Lieutenant_Rans Jul 21 '16
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u/aperson97 Jul 21 '16
can someone explain the joke the first character was making?
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Jul 21 '16
I don't think they're stupid. They're just a different kind of riddle. If you hear enough of them and someone tries to tell you a riddle like that, you can definitely figure it out. Conversations about grade-school math and riddles are usually not overlapping so if you're talking about riddles, and someone drops this one on you, you should be looking for a non-conventional answer, not just "let me do some math real quick."
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u/riemann1413 Jul 21 '16
this riddle states that it takes 3 men 3 days to dig 'a hole'
it then asks a statement about half 'a hole'
the answer to that question is simple, 4.5 days. it's a very boring riddle. if you try to transform the riddle and call it clever because it hinged on a lack of clear communication about the operating definition of 'a hole', you haven't made a clever riddle. you've made the boring riddle into a stupid riddle
and nobody wins
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u/TheLadyEve Jul 21 '16
So you're telling me you can have a whole hole but not half a hole? Well I say if something can be a whole then it can also be a half.
Then tell me who's playing left field?
Who's playing first.
Stay out of the infield! The left fielder's name?
Why.
Because.
Oh, he's center field.
Brain explodes
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u/reddill Jul 21 '16
Who holds the whole hole is the heir to air and errs in the thought that a whole button is but not a half.
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u/TheLadyEve Jul 21 '16
But is the pellet with the poison in the vessel with the pestle? Or does the flagon with the dragon have the brew that is true?
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u/Rezingreenbowl Jul 21 '16
I must be losing my dam mind because the argument "how can you have a whole of something, if you can't have a half of it" totally made sense to me and very mildly blew my mind.
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u/chaosattractor Jul 21 '16
I thought they taught everyone the concept of uncountable nouns and other things requiring partitives in primary school
mods pls allow drama
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u/jhe7795 Jul 21 '16
For all you in here bickering about the hole issue one of the great philosophers of our time has already outlined the problem and hinted at solutions see David Lewis and Stephanie Lewis' paper "holes" https://books.google.com/books?id=S4t5qNYRTXQC&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=argle%20and%20bargle%20holes&source=bl&ots=csOh3P0AeT&sig=_OUQzdhOIq-aSiRBxdowzApPwXc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=f4SJVbWhG8OHsAWLnKGgCw&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=argle%20and%20bargle%20holes&f=false
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u/bonsley6 Jul 22 '16
So from what I get from all the arguing is that there are 2 answers based on how you interpret the riddle, and both are correct.
If you interpret it as half a hole being a hole half the size of the one that the three men dig, then the answer is 4.5 days
But if the first sentence doesn't reference the half hole in the second sentence, then it's a trick because on its own without a reference there is no such thing as half a hole.
This whole riddle is made to confuse you on purpose with dumb wording.
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u/MoralMidgetry Jul 21 '16
We've really been on a roll with the shitty fallacy claims the past few days. I can sort of understand being confused about the meaning of "straw man" or "no true Scotsman." Appeal to authority is fucking self-explanatory though.