Seemingly Simple Math

There was a great article in yesterday's Times.  There are so many reasons why I love this article, let me count the ways.

1. The title.  "Modern Pentathlon Gets a Little Less Penta."  Genius!

2. The premise.  The Olympic event of the modern pentathlon will now combine two events: running and shooting.  So, technically, there are four distinct competitions for the gold.

3. The first paragraph.  The author calls out the event for not being so "modern" anymore.  Fencing, shooting, and horse jumping?  The running and swimming make it only 40% modern.  Maybe they combined events to make it more like 50% modern.

4. The ridiculousness.  There are no plans to change the name of the event.  And the reminder that the Big Ten conference has 11 teams.  But, never fear, they have an 11 in their Big Ten logo.

5. The reach.  A former competitor says, "it's really three events plus a biathlon."  I guess 3 + 2 is still 5.

6. The linguists shaking their heads.  "This is crazy."  But then continuing to say, "There's a fine line to fuss about."  How does the linguist let this slide?  I think it's ludicrous.

7. The near perfect rebuttal.  The author writes: "But just try to remove an event from the decathlon, or write a trilogy with two books, or draw a rectangle with three sides."  Shoot.  He was so close.  Deca- is ten, tri- is three, but recti- means right or straight, referring to the, duh, angles of a rectangle.  Rectangle does not mean four angles.  

8. The article leaves both math teachers and English teachers giddy.    

And, yes, I do like counting things.