Brevity by Dan Thompson for August 12, 2022

A retired school-teacher tells me that the 7-ate-9 joke was forbidden at her school because it is violent. (Ooooh. So scary!)

But then they gave up trying with 9 8 7

I remember hearing being told why is six afraid of seven and the answer is because seven ate nine.

You two, get back to picking up sticks!

How do you say three cats drowned in French?

Trois chats se sont noyés.

No. Trois quatre cinq.

No, no, you can only even. ;-)

hey, it’s too early for math!

I can’t either…

How do you make even odd? Add an S and make it seven.

Ah, but why did seven eat nine in the first place? Well, everyone needs three square(d) meals a day…

I would think six couldn’t odd.

Even though I was completely familiar with the old joke, I couldn’t help but see the individual numbers as being “56” and wondered “why 56?”. After dividing it by 2 a few times, I realized it was 7×8, which was always the only odd-feeling one for me in the times table. I guess that, because ‘5’ was never part of the riddle, my brain, all on its own, tried to come up with a new interpretation.

7 ate 9, the goose drank wine, the monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line; the line broke, the monkey got choked, and we all went to heaven in a little row boat.

That’s odd