An Irish man wants a job, but the foreman won't hire

him until he passes a little maths test.

Here is your first question, the foreman said.

"Without using numbers, represent the number 9."

"Without numbers?" The Irishman says,

"Dat is easy." And proceeds to draw three trees.



"What's this?" the boss asks?

"Ave you got no brain?

Tree and tree and tree make nine," says the Irishman .

"Fair enough," says the boss.

"Here's your second question.

Use the same rules, but this time the number is 99."

The Irishman stares into space for a while,

then picks up the picture that he has just drawn and

makes a smudge on each tree. "Ere you go."



The boss scratches his head and says,

"How on earth do you get that to represent 99?"

"Each of da trees is dirty now.

So, it's dirty tree, and dirty tree, and dirty tree.

Dat is 99."

The boss is getting worried that he's going to actually have to hire this Irishman,

so he says, "All right, last question.

Same rules again, but represent the number 100."

The Irishman stares into space some more,

then he picks up the picture again and

makes a little mark at the base of each tree and says,

"Ere you go.

One hundred."



The boss looks at the attempt.

"You must be nuts if you think that represents a hundred!"

The Irishman leans forward and points to the

marks at the base of each tree and says,

"A little dog come along and did a crap by each tree.

So now you got dirty tree and a turd,

dirty tree and a turd,

and dirty tree and a turd,

which makes one hundred."

"So, when do I start?"

maths maths maths

i hv got one.

maths maths maths

i hv got one.

the first one is a classic

Peter was obviously well prepared and in the mood for his math test, eh?

As a child, a Chinese woman friend of mine went to an English school in Manila. A teacher yelled at the students, "7, 8, 2, 9". My friend yelled back, "26". The teacher became very upset, and repeated his command, "7, 8, 2, 9". Annabelle replied as she did before, only to get her face slapped by the teacher. The teacher was trying to communicate, "Separate - two lines."