oranges and apples

A customer goes into a fruit shop. she says to the shop assistnant. 'I would like some fruit, but I don't want any oranges or apples' The assistant handed her some oranges. The shopper protested, but the assistant said that she was only doing what the customer asked. Which she indeed was doing.... How come?

Mike Warren.

I don't want 'any oranges' or 'apples'. Assistant gave shopper 'some oranges'.

The assistant was a r.p regular and was deliberately misinterpreting the request according to some arbitrary set of logical rules not in common English usage.

Correct response from customer is to see how many of the 'not apples' can fit in the assistant's mouth at one time.

ObPuzzle: why hasn't somebody invented a seedless mango?

As in 'These aren't just ANY oranges; they're the [blank]!' ('the ones I hand-picked for you,' 'our sweetest ones,' etc.)

If she had wanted apples or oranges, that would have been an OR. She said she didn't want any, making it an exclusive or (XOR). The assistant was about to give her apples too, making an AND. OR includes AND but XOR does not.

Chris schrieb:

Well, if she wants( not( apples OR oranges ) ) then she's ok. You think she wants( (not apples) OR (not oranges) ), but the 'not' is with the 'want', not with the fruit.

|'I would like some fruit, but I don't want any oranges or apples' |The assistant handed her some oranges. The shopper protested, but |the assistant said that she was only doing what the customer asked. |Which she indeed was doing.... |How come?

Maybe the assistant gave her two oranges, ie a pear!

then again..........maybe not

The negation of OR is NOR, not XOR.

apples oranges OR F F F F T T T F T T T T

apples oranges NOR F F T F T F T F F T T F

apples oranges XOR F F F F T T T F T T T F

The assistant made the same mistake you did, using the XOR truth table instead of the NOR truth table.

Mike schrieb:

You need to put the 'not' where you do it in language.

If not( B=4 or B=5) then do something

works well.

There is such a thing as a seedless mango, the Sindhu mango. As with a seedless watermelon, it's not truly seedless, but rather has a very thin seed.