Mathematician's Answer/Analysis

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
< Mathematician's Answer
Revision as of 03:47, 4 February 2019 by Damian Yerrick (talk | contribs) (When "Yes" means "Both")


A Mathematician's Answer is technically correct yet pragmatically infelicitous.

"A, B, or C?" → "Yes"
Given a question presenting a set of options that are mutually exclusive yet collectively exhaustive, such as "Is it common or uncommon?", the answer implies only that the options are collectively exhaustive. It is infelicitous because the answerer knew that the asker knew that the options were collectively exhaustive. In some cases, a "Yes" answer may imply cheekily that the unstated premise that they are mutually exclusive is false.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Mathematician%27s_Answer/Analysis?oldid=1678593"