A Gaggle of Geese Goodies
Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 7:31PM
rebecca in puzzling, tidbits of no consequence, words
A Problem with Geese
A man driving his geese to market was met by another who said, “Good morrow, with your hundred geese.” He replied, “I have not a hundred, but if I had half as many more as I now have, and two geese and a half, I should have a hundred.” How many had he?
 

[From the Farmer’s Almanac Newsletter]

A Piece of Goose Art 

Adrian_Ludwig_Richter_024.jpg
 St.-Annen-Kirche zu Graupen in Böhmen
Adrian Ludwig Richter 
 
Some Goose Etymology 
gaggle Look up gaggle at Dictionary.com
c.1470, gagyll, with ref. to both geese and women. Barnhardt says possibly from O.N. gagl “goose;” OED calls it “one of the many artificial terms invented in the 15th c. as distinctive collectives referring to particular animals or classes of persons.” Possibly of imitative origin (cf. Du. gagelen “to chatter;” M.E. gaggle “to cackle,” used of geese, attested from 1399).
Source
 

Solving the Goose Problem:
“…if I had half as many more as I now have, and two geese and a half, I should have a hundred.”

The number of geese now, with half the number now, with two and a half geese more, is one hundred geese.

x + .5x+ 2.5 = 100

1.5x = 97.5

x = 65 

 
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