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Family Size Poser

Family Size Poser

Posers and Puzzles

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A couple has 4 daughters. Each daughter has one brother. How many people are in this family?

This is either very hard or very easy.

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7. Couple + 4 daughters + 1 son. Unless I'm missing something obvious.

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Originally posted by C J Horse
7. Couple + 4 daughters + 1 son. Unless I'm missing something obvious.
You aren't missing anything. There is a out there where someone insists the answer is 10.

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As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives,
Each wife had seven sacks,
Each sack had seven cats,
Each cat had seven kits:
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,
How many were there going to St. Ives?

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Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,
How many were there going to St. Ives?
I find the canonical answer to this to be unsatisfying on a couple of levels.
First of all the riddle appears to ask how many "Kits, cats, sacks and wives" are going - which should not therefore include either the bigamist or the narrator of the story.

The second problem is that I would guess that a large group of sack-carrying wives would almost certainly walk more slowly than me, so it would be equally possible for me to be catching them up or walking in the opposite direction.

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There was only one going to St Ives. All the others were coming from St Ives.

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Or they were all going to St Ives and you were overtaking them.

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All we can say is that there is one person going to St. Ives.
There is not enough information to say that anyone else is going anywhere
They could be going there but nothing is said about it.

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Originally posted by mwmiller
All we can say is that there is one person going to St. Ives.
There is not enough information to say that anyone else is going anywhere
They could be going there but nothing is said about it.
St Ives is nice.
Cant understand so many leaving.

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Originally posted by wolfgang59
St Ives is nice.
Cant understand so many leaving.
Well it wasn't so nice yesterday when it was overrun with cats and wives.