The Origin of Greek Tragic Drama Jokes

[dennis grace]

Whoa!  Potential paradox time.

You'll recall that Mittelwerk queried:
>
>>you're at the checkout line at Price Chopper, express lane, 5 items or less,
>>repeat, you must be checking out 5 items or less.
>>
>>now, if you have four different 'items,' yet one of these 'items' happens to
>>be cat food, of which you are about to purchase 5 cans of said substance,
>>
>>what do you have?  4 items (with one item in a quantity of 5)?
>>
>>or,
>>
>>8 items, effectively disbarring you fom usage of the express lane?

And I responded in part:

>Analytically (i.e., anally)--despite the subject line:  if you have five
>cans of cat food and three other items, you have more than five items.  Most
>checkers check each can separately, even if they're the same item iterated
>any reasonable number of times.  Thus, the checker will have to check each
>item separately.  Now, if your five iterated items had been produce, checked
>by weight or number, I'd call them one effective item.  BTW, the reason I
>said "more than five" rather than "8" is that the other three items could be
>three apples being checked at a per pound price.

Then it hit me, I said "any reasonable number of items" with good reason.
If you had, say, 50 cans of cat food, the checker would count the cans but
check only one.  In that case, does the quantity count as one instance of
checking?  If so, at what point does the number of items become high enough
to return to them to singular status?  I mean, hey, you'd probably have to
count the quantity as at least two effective items (one for the act of
counting, one for the act of checking), but could this be an instance of
more is less?

dgg

PS--I still don't get the "Greek Tragic Drama" bit--unless the other three
items are barbacoa cabrito?

d
_____________________________
Dennis Grace
University of Texas at Austin
English Department
Recovering Medievalist

"Oh God comma I abhor self-consciousness."  --JB