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The reason the mayor said "an even number or zero" is because if he said "an even number", it's really obvious that many people with zero ending license plates
by droithomme 14y ago
The reason the mayor said "an even number or zero" is because if he said "an even number", it's really obvious that many people with zero ending license plates would show up both days claiming zero was neither even nor odd, thinking they had found a loophole and/or that zero plate holders were lucky and special.
Explicitly including zero in the rule is not an assertion zero is not even, it is an attempt to head off the confusion, controversy, lawsuits, fights, and wasted time needed to later modify the rule when the inevitable controversy arises.
- PuercoPop 14y agoYou could say an even number, which includes zero for that effect.
- PuercoPop 14y agoWhy the downvoting? I was just pointing that the OC makes a non argument. If one wants to prevent ambiguity of the text, and one thinks that the evenness of is not clear for the intended audience, one adds a appositive parenthesis reinforcing that fact.
- hmrmaxwell 14y agoIt looks like you meant "'an even number, which includes zero' for that effect", but on first reading, it appeared to me (and perhaps your downvoters), that you meant "'an even number', which includes zero for that effect", which would be a significantly less productive comment.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- baddox 14y agoI suspect the mayor's goal was to eliminate driver confusion, not to prevent this article from being written.
- mikeash 14y agoAnd all of those potential confusion, controversy, lawsuits, fights, and wasted time come out of the fact that a lot of people don't think zero is even, which is the whole point they were trying to make.
- omni 14y agoOr that people are capable of being intellectually dishonest when it suits them.
- anigbrowl 14y agoBullshit. Most of those people don't give a fuck whether zero is odd or even, they just want to buck the system. It's like those anti-tax nuts who claim their social security # doesn't belong to them, but to some 'straw man' identity, because the name on the social security card is in all caps.