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this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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No no, they're saying "4!" literally is the answer. The joke is that you say 4!, the other person who presumably knows the order of operations assumes you got it wrong and did 25 - 5 = 20 ÷ 5 = 4 when really you do division first so the real answer is 24. The punchline is that "4!" is how you write 4 factorial or 1 × 2 × 3 × 4 which is 24.
Nothing goes over my head! My reflexes are too fast; I would catch it.
Yes, I understand that 4! is the correct answer. That is not my point. Without the misconception that the answer is 4, there is no punchline. This comic strongly implies that the natural assumption should be that the answer is 4, and that the secret, hidden answer is 24. In other words, in a world where people understand order of operations, the comic is not funny, because you wouldn't look at that and think 4 is a reasonable answer.
The joke relies on, as you put it, the assumption you did it wrong.
What are you even talking about? In what world is the assumption supposed to be that the actual answer is 4 and that 24 is some kind of secret hidden answer?
The assumption being made by the comic is that the reader knows the order of operations and will think that the person answering 4! is the one that did it wrong and mistakes the ! operator for them being enthusiastically wrong.
No the joke is that first think they got wrong, then realize it's a factorial so they got it right (the a-ha moment!).
Then we realize that they might not have gotten it because the wrong answer is 4 and they may not know of factorials.
The ambiguity is very clever. Some other commenters call it a pun.
that commenter was me. Try ctrl+f.
Your explanation of the joke would suggest that it would be equally funny if the question were "what's 21 + 3?" But obviously that isn't true -- the joke is meant to be that both 4 and 4! are equally valid answers to the question. However, in reality, 4 is not a valid answer; I just feel the same disappointment any prescriptivist feels when they see a word misused.
No because 4 is the obvious wrong answer. 21+3 my isses idea completely.
4(exclamation) is wrong while 4(factorial) is right.
I think the smugness of someone who knows factorials is also part of what makes it fun.
Right, but in my mind, 25-5÷5, 4 is obviously the wrong answer.
If you think that many people would not find 4 to be obviously wrong, then surely you must agree with what I have been saying this whole time: the comic assumes people struggle with order of operations.
Yes, the comic assumes people struggle with the order of operations. It does not however assume that of the reader. It is intended to make the reader assume that the character struggles with it and it's enthusiastically wrong rather than that they're using the ! operator.
At worst the comic is trying to be engagement bait and trick those people into commenting some variation of "Wrong, the correct answer is 24. You always do the division first," to which someone can reveal to them that they were bamboozled because "4!" is in fact 24.
Edit: and if they catch that it's like "Haha, you almost tricked me with that sneaky factorial. Well played." That's where the humor comes from. Whether or not it manages to trick you into thinking that they did it wrong.
And this is why I said, "did nobody learn order of operations?"
How did you instantly know that the character struggled with it? Because you thought that order of operations is something many people struggle with, so it was the first thing you checked. Imagine an alternative:
"Ah, you forgot that ÷ 2 does not mean dividing twice" -- this is just not a mistake you'd think somebody would make, so it's not funny. If this were the comic, I would just say, "did nobody learn how division works?"
Look at you missing the point entirely again or being intentionally fucking obtuse.
I felt the same about you. Obviously we're not communicating well here so let's just agree to disagree.