I’ve decided I get way too much e-mail, forwarded so many times that I rarely can figure out who the original sender was. This makes me wary, not only of getting a virus into my computer, but also of the veracity of the material. If you don’t know who originally wrote or sent it, how can you check it out?
Over the years, two columns I wrote apparently contained erroneous information. Both documents came over the Internet via second, third or maybe dozens of parties not known to me, the last of which I knew and contacted only to find they hadn’t bothered to verify anything.
I promised myself I wouldn’t base any more columns on Internet info that I couldn’t check for myself. Yet, here I am, about to do it again just because it turned out to be funny and of no real consequence, anyway.
My daughter Susan forwarded a little game titled Fun with Math, and subtitled, I think, “A Strictly Mathematical Viewpoint.” Since it came to me from Susan and didn’t require opening an attachment, I figured it was clean.
It goes like this: What makes 100 percent? What does it mean to give more than 100 percent? Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100 percent? We’ve all been to those meetings where someone wants you to give over 100 percent. How about achieving 103 percent? What makes up 100 percent in life? Sounds a bit like a George Carlin routine.
Here’s a mathematical formula that may help answer these questions: If all the letters of the alphabet in proper order-A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z-were represented as all the numbers from one to 26-or 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26-then one might deduce that H A R D W O R K, represented by 8 + 1 + 18 + 4 + 23 + 15+ 18 + 11, equals 98 percent. And the word K N O W L E D G E, represented as 11 + 14 + 15 + 23 + 12 + 5 + 4 + 7 + 5, would equal 96 percent.
But A T T I T U D E numerically would be 1 + 20 + 20 + 9 + 20 +21 + 4 + 5, equaling the whole enchilada at 100 percent.
Then, however, B U L L “P U C K Y” in its more common 4-letter iteration, works out as 2 + 21 + 12 + 12 + 19 + 8 + 9 + 20 and equals103 percent. Really.
Stay with me and see how far D O N K E Y K I S S I N G will take you (again considering “donkey” a euphemism) so numerically it would likely be 1 + 19 + 19 + 11 + 9 + 19 + 19 + 9 + 14 + 7. And, if you remember that the other word for donkey has two Ss, I believe it works out to a whopping 118 percent.
So one may conclude with some mathematical certainty that while HARD WORK and KNOWLEDGE will get you close, and ATTITUDE gets you all the way there, the other two will put you over the top. At least in corporate ladder climbing.
What follows in the e-mail is this little gem: “Remember, some people are alive simply because it’s illegal to shoot them.” Might this apply to people with way too much time on their hands, those folks who send goofy e-mails that clog your computer and waste your time?
Anyway, the upshot of all this nonsense is that after my 14-year-old grandson got on his mom’s computer and read Fun with Math, he did some fast calculating of his own and came up with the following:
D O I N G N O T H I N G works out to something like 136 percent. This is exactly the sort of thing that appeals to unmotivated teens. You do the math: 4 + 15 + 9 + 14 + 7 + 14 + 15 + 20 + 8 + 9 + 14 + 7. I did it myself and even with my limited math skills I came out with exactly 136 percent. He may be lazy but at least he’s accurate.
Do I consider the whole thing a colossal waste of time? Well, probably. Still I couldn’t resist this: P L A Y I N G H O O K E Y it seems works out to be the best of all. If 16 + 12 + 1 + 25 + 9 + 14 + 7 + 8 + 15 + 15 + 11 + 5 + 25 adds up to 163 percent, that would suit both my teen-aged friend and me.
That’s it for math and e-mails. And if anyone finds an error in my addition, they’ve got way too much time on their hands.