Bert or Kurt?

I always thought this kind of self-contradictory statement was a consequence of Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorem (qv), but here I see it attributed to Bertrand Russell.

This is philosophically (or mathematically) equivalent to the statement “This sentence is false.” Gödel definitely warned that things that refer to themselves can get you into trouble.

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When you multiply something by a hundred, you get more or bigger, right? In math class we used to add two zeros to a number to multiply it by a hundred. Well, take a look at this sentence:

The galaxies – 100 times less massive than our Milky Way – are now among the smallest known to host such big black holes.

https://earthsky.org/space/astronomers-find-13-wandering-black-holes-in-dwarf-galaxies

Can you have something a hundred times less? If you can, what are you multiplying by a hundred?

Yes, the sentence is idiomatic, but still, I think it’s better to write what you mean. The sentence means one hundredth as massive.

Harrumpf.

Oh—here’s a picture:

I just had to comment on this:

I can think lying down, but I have to be at least sitting to write!

At least he said “lying down” instead of “laying down.” I gotta give him that.

I’ve given examples of not being concise before. Here’s another. Don’t do this. (See the previous post.)

Remember the rule: If you can leave a word out, leave it out!

He replaced the original with a metaphor, but still, it’s more concise…

That’s Shakespeare, by the way, in case you didn’t remember the source.