Well, is T10 really 19 stones away from the wall?
I don’t think so.
There are three definitions of away; inclusive, exclusive, and (I don’t know how to call it - clusive?)
a) Include the endpoints. This is the only correct explanation for the meme to be accurate, as, otherwise, the stone would be 18 or 17 stones “away”. For “away”, this is usually not what is meant. Is twenty ten “away” from 11? The most often use of this is in counting the number of elements in a range (ex. 5 days from October 1st to October 5th).
b) Exclude the endpoints. If this was the case, the meme would not be accurate. I also don’t think this is what is meant. Is twenty ten “away” from 9? However, this is also likely not meant. This is often used when pointing out the gap between elements, such as “There are nine numbers between 10 and 20.” This is a possible explanation, but, because the text referred to “away” instead of something related to “in the gap”, I believe that this is not what is commonly meant in this context.
c) Include one, exclude the other. As the most often meaning of “away”, this is probably what would’ve been meant given the context. The fact that 20 is 10 “away” from 10 makes the most intuitive sense, likely because we think of 20 - 10 = 10. This is most often used in real life, which further supports its standing as the likely meaning.
Given that c is the most probable meaning of “away”, the T10 stone is, infact, 18 stones away from the wall! The only way to salvage what is left of the horrendous insult to mathematics is to shorten the black wall or to move the T10 stone.
tl;dr
The T10 stone is 18 stones away from the 19-stone wall which goes against the proverb mentioned in the meme.
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