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[Mumpo]

Are there more questions than answers? Or more answers than questions?

Or exactly as many answers as questions?

[seand]

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Mumpo wrote: Are there more questions than answers? Or more answers than questions?

Or exactly as many answers as questions?

Questions 3 Answers 0, by my count.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

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Is a list of multiple possible answers to one question ('which people have served as Prime Minister under Queen Elizabeth II?') one answer, or several?

[Sits]

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seand wrote:

Are there more questions than answers? Or more answers than questions?

Or exactly as many answers as questions?

Questions 3 Answers 0, by my count.

But for many questions, there are many answers. And who said the answers have to be correct?

[beak]

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Mumpo wrote: Are there more questions than answers? Or more answers than questions?

Or exactly as many answers as questions?

What if I were to answer with a question? And then you turn around and say "oh, you're a right smart-alec, aren't you?"

Getting nowhere.

[Jah Womble]

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One question can indeed elicit many answers.

Such a question might be 'what are you up to this weekend?' All answers to which will be entirely dependant upon who's asking.

[treibeis]

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Aren't there a near-infinite number of nonsense questions, though? "How many duck-billed platypuses have played scrum-half for The Wurzels Second XI?", that sort of thing?

[Jah Womble]

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By the same token, there can be any number of nonsensical answers - viz 'only on a chocolatey Thursday in Newport Pagnell' - can there not?

Like the questions, I think we have to dismiss these as 'spoiled'.

[treibeis]

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All right, what about arithmetic, then? The answer to "How many threes are there in nine?", "How many fives are there in fifteen?", "How many sixes are there in eighteen?" and so on and so on is always the same.

Until you get to one billion and one, of course, which my grandfather told me is the bigger number possible.

[Stumpy Pepys]

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Johnny Nash wades in …

[Jah Womble]

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I'd had that earworm ever since seeing this.

treibeis wrote: All right, what about arithmetic, then? The answer to "How many threes are there in nine?", "How many fives are there in fifteen?", "How many sixes are there in eighteen?" and so on and so on is always the same.

Until you get to one billion and one, of course, which my grandfather told me is the bigger number possible.

It depends how one defines an answer. If, for example, the question were 'how many threes in eighteen?', then 'six', 'half a dozen', or even 'more than four' would all be viable answers.

And this is before we get onto whether a 'wrong' answer is still technically a valid answer.

Which, of course, it is.

[Diable Rouge]

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Mumpo wrote: Are there more questions than answers? Or more answers than questions?

Or exactly as many answers as questions?

Yes, I'd agree with Rogin and go with answers, as they imply the existence of questions, and many questions have several answers, even if some questions are rhetorical.

[Furtho]

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Jah Womble wrote: By the same token, there can be any number of nonsensical answers - viz 'only on a chocolatey Thursday in Newport Pagnell' - can there not?

If you can just hang on until tomorrow, this may turn out to be less nonsensical than one might imagine. I'll report back.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

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Diable Rouge wrote:

Yes, I'd agree with Rogin and go with answers, as they imply the existence of questions, and many questions have several answers, even if some questions are rhetorical.

Oh, I didn't declare my cards on one side or the other. I simply posited that there might be single questions that have multiple answers. By the same token, there may be several questions that would all satisfy a single answer, a concept amply demonstrated by the American gameshow "Jeopardy".

[Toby Gymshorts]

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Forty-two.