Pete Crosby writes:

>Does anyone knoe how/why this works or have any background on it.

It works because carrots are common vegetables and 5, 7 and 12 are a
triple that everybody knows (or ought to know), and the question presents
them in a familiar form. All the preliminary arithmetic is irrelevant; it
just serves to keep the questioner from being beaned when s/he asks the
clincher. (If you just walk up to someone and ask them to name a
vegetable, you could get carted off to a funny farm.)

By the way, I first heard the vegetable one when I was in first grade --
except the arithmetic problems all had 9 for an answer. I said "Brussels
sprout"; my mother wasn't big on carrots.

-- Bruce


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