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How does half a dozen remain? Question
If from six you take nine, and from nine you take ten,
(You youths, now the mystery explain;)
And if fifty from forty be taken, there then
Shall just half a dozen remain.
The above puzzle appeared in the book:
“Rational amusement for winter evenings” (1821) by John Jackson.
3 answers
Probably not correct...
This sounds too far-fetched a solution to be correct, but I'll give it a try:
Type out the numbers you got as Roman numerals:
VI (6) IX (9) 40 (XL) = VI IX XL
- Remove IX (9) = VI XL
- Remove X (10) = VI L
- Remove L (50) = VI
- VI (6) remains.
The following users marked this post as Works for me:
| User | Comment | Date |
|---|---|---|
| will.octagon.gibson | (no comment) | Mar 20, 2026 at 22:09 |
I find this puzzle clever because to solve it,
Spoiler 1
you need to interpret some of the given numbers as English words and some as Roman numerals.
So the solution is:
Spoiler 2
1 comment thread
I'm not sure if this is the intended solution, but it seems to fit.
Explanation
If you remove the letters of each word from the word it is "taken" from, there are 2 letters remaining in each of the 3 cases, a total of 6 (half a dozen) letters remaining.
- Start with
SIXand remove the letters ofNINEto leaveSX. - Start with
NINEand remove the letters ofTENto leaveIN(TENonly has 1Nso only 1 is removed fromNINE). - Start with
FORTYand remove the letters ofFIFTYto leaveOR.
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