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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!hou2d!wbp
From: wbp@hou2d.UUCP (W.PINEAULT)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.nlang,net.ai
Subject: On having virtually no crime rate.
Message-ID: <472@hou2d.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Aug-84 17:48:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: hou2d.472
Posted: Mon Aug 13 17:48:35 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Aug-84 02:14:57 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 23


	"Saudi Arabia has virtually no crime rate," is what the commercial
told me about 30 times before I realized what they are really saying.
	I understand what having virtually no crime is, and also a very
low crime rate is within my grasp.  But virtually no crime rate is a very
odd construction.
	If a place has no crime rate then this means that the statistics
are not gathered and that's O.K too.
	If the crime rate is virtually non-existent then it indeed exists,
but is in a state of "almost non-being" which may mean that for all practical
purposes it does not exist, but is known to a select few who will tell
no-one.  (Or may be a reflection of their different system of justice!)

	Are virtual rates calculated on virtual machines, and does one
need either transcendental or imaginary numbers to express them?

	Seriously, what would a program do with such a sentence?  
And even more interesting, would a sophisticated program have any
problem with it, and could it not even see a problem with it as I am
sure millons of people did not see one!
				Submitted for your approval,
				Wayne Pineault (hou2d!wbp)