How many f are there??

[Guest]

Can you count how many "f" are there in the following sentence?

finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years..

Easy, isn't it?

Edited August 14, 2011 by hungryforlogic

[Guest]

I count 6 F's. I know one thing for sure. Our brain's do NOT process the word "of" so if you found that you only counted only 3 F's, you probably missed the three "of's" in the sentence. It's amazing that "of" is written three times and you do not even see it until someone points it out!!!

[dark_magician_92]

man this is crazy, i counted 3 and cant believe that i missed all the

"ofs"

[Guest]

easy

6f's

[OmegaScales]

I only count one "f"

"the (f)ollowing sentence."

[MissKitten]

There goes Omega, being punny as usual!

[Guest]

Zero. The jumble of words in the second line is just that, and doesn't meet the reqs to be called a sentance.

"Easy, isn't it?" An actual, sentance, contains Zero f's.

[Guest]

emm..

why doesn't it "meet the reqs to be called a sentance."?

[Guest]

I have to say 6

[moonthirsty]

Looks like a sentence to me. But I'm not sure what a "sentance" is, so maybe it doesn't meet those requirements.

[Guest]

It's got a subject, a verb, and an object...it's a sentence. And given the all-too-terrible grammar/spelling on this site, it's a pretty good one, too.

[Guest]

There are zero (0) f's in the sentence, "Easy isn't it?" There are six (6) f's in the line, "finished files are the result of years of scientific study combined with the experience of years.." Which, as mentioned before, is poor English grammatically. In my opinion the finished files line does not constitute a sentence at all. A sentence similar to this one should begin with a capital letter and have a single period. Without these the words just constitute a random phrase for us to be confused about. Which I imagine is to make the searching for the f's that much more difficult. I feel it part of the trick in this easy question. If it is considered a sentence by the author, the answer is given either way. The f's in of are a little harder to notice.

Lastly OmegaScales mentions only finding one "f" in the post. This is because when we want to highlight a letter we should put into italics rather than quotes. The quotes make a reader of Standard English feel he is looking for a single lettered word rather than a letter within the word. He is also correct. Quotations should be used for quotes not for highlighting letters or words. Although in our person to person speech we might say "I did the work [the speaker lifts the index and middle fingers of both hands and curves them downward to make quotation marks] my boss told me to do. In this instance, we would italicize the word to show its significance rather than put it in quotes. English grammar rules are tricky. I'm not sure any one person knows all of them, and they change all the freaking time. This is why many riddles and jokes are based on word play. Here is my favorite knock-knock joke.

"Knock-knock."

"Who's there?"

"Boo"

"Boo who"

"Don't cry, it's just a joke."

My daughter would tell me that one over and over when she was just two and a half. It was precious. Anyway, it is a difficult riddle to understand what we are supposed to be doing.

eYE DoNT nO wUt iZ bEEng askd uv US

See what happens when poor English is used to convey a simple message. It took you a little longer to understand what the heck I was telling you in that sentence than in the previous sentences where I use correct English grammar. Here is a funny saying by George Bernard Shaw.

"If gh stands for f as in cough,

if o stands for i as in women,

if ti stands for sh as in nation

then the right way to spell

fish

should be

ghoti

."

This shows how confusing the English language can be. Riddles can take advantage of it.

[Guest]

Zero. The jumble of words in the second line is just that, and doesn't meet the reqs to be called a sentance.

"Easy, isn't it?" An actual, sentance, contains Zero f's.

you're probably saying this because @hungryforlogic's english is pathetic

[Guest]

i found 6 'f' in the first line - wasn't sure if that was the line we were required to check.

[Guest]

whether it meets the requirements of a sentence or not

the only point of this riddle is only to show that our brain doesn't process the "of's"

after all this is in the "New Logic/Math Puzzles " topic.. not the "New Word Riddles" topic

[Guest]

6 f's and lets not get picky about our grammatical skills and the grammatical skills of others now

as long as we understood what was asked of us, it does not really matter as this is no exam or report etc.

Edited August 23, 2011 by MidnightLove7

[Guest]

The answer is not six.

A word that begins a sentence should be capitalized. As "finished" is not, perhaps there is a word or are words that precede it. Thus one would have a problem in counting the number of actual fs in the sentence as the missing part of the sentence may contain one or more fs. The answer to the question would be 'No'.

.

If the sentence begins with "finished", such that "finished files" is a proper noun expressed in the manner like that of "e. e. cummings", or if the sentence is written erroneously with an uncapitalized first word, then the answer would be 'Yes'.

The question asks whether one can count how many fs are there and not what the count is.

Edited August 25, 2011 by Dej Mar

[MissKitten]

Jeez, people! The grammar doesn't matter! I've seen this before, and I'll bet a lot of you have seen it before too. The intent is pretty clear. He's asking how many f's there are in that line. So count the f's and get over it! Not everybody speaks English as their first language. Just because you're lucky enough to, other people might not be. So don't be nitpicky, it just kills the puzzle and ruins the enjoyment others may have been feeling!

[Guest]

i make 6

[Guest]

Blahblahblah

First off, I'm glad that this *expletive* only posted once on this board. What an arrogant arse. You would think that someone who is so full of themselves with spelling and grammar would know the difference between quote (a verb) and quotation (a noun). Not to mention his lack of punctuation.

In fact, I kind of wish he still posted here so I could teach him the proper rules of the English language.

Second, what is with the necroposting there Nep Ton?