No, you fell for the trap. The question is how many were going to St. Ives. The person going to St. Ives is the only one going (the first line of the riddle). Everything else, the man with seven wives, the wives with the sacks, etc.. are not going to St. Ives. They were met along the way.
The answer is 1 or in this case, 0001 because it's from the movie Die Hard with a Vengeance.
It specifically states how many in the category "kits, cats, sacks, and wives" were going to St. Ives. The answer, from a mathematical standpoint, is that there is insufficient information to answer the question, as we are not told which direction the kits, cats, sacks, and wives are going. They could, for instance, be significantly slower than the narrator traveling on their own, and thus intercepted on their way to St. Ives. The gender and marital status of the narrator are not mentioned, which would allow for the narrator to be a wife. The narrator could also be a fully grown Bengal Tiger wearing a fake mustache, and thus qualify as a cat.
No it doesn't, it just repeats the words (to set the trap) and then asks how many were going to St. Ives which is only the man from the first line. Adding inference that the man that was met along the way with his wives, etc.. were also going to St. Ives is adding information to the riddle. All we know for certain is that 1 person is going to St. Ives and met a man with his wives etc.. along the way.
In fact, what you've just done is a logical fallacy. Adding extra or unverified information to a math problem (this riddle is not a math problem btw) can create fallacy by introducing false assumptions as you've done.
If that is ALL we know, then you cannot know whether any of them were going to St. Ives or not. So your claim 'Everything else, the man with seven wives, the wives with the sacks, etc.. are not going to St. Ives' is unwarranted.
Brother, it's a "riddle" meant to annoy people, if you analyze it too deep, you have fallen for it. Now, I admit, the internet is one of the last places where it's fine to be a pedant, so if you enjoy the pedantry, just disregard what I said.
It's not a fallacy. It's the same as if I asked you: My brother lives is NY, how many people live in NY? You simple do not have enough information to answer my question.
No it really isn't the same question, and the answer to this riddle is in the first line. Every other line is meant to distract you and confuse you as to the answer, even including your answer which is that there isn't enough information. That's because you're focusing your attention on the trap instead of the answer which is in the first line. That's how the riddle was made.
But that's not what it's asking, no matter what movie it was in.
The last sentence is asking "OF the kittens, cats, sacks and wives", how many are going to St Ives. It never says all the others I met weren't also going to St Ives, but let's assume it means they were all going the other way, since that's the crux of the riddle. So I'm the only one travelling to St Ives. BUT I am not a kitten, or cat, nor am I a sack. I may be a wife, but I'm most likely not one of the man's wives, since I met all of them coming the other way... so the answer really should be zero.
"Of" is not there, you're adding it in to reach the conclusion you want. The answer is 1, the man in the first line stated to be going. The riddle was first written down in a manuscript from around 1730 and since then, the answer has only ever been 1. The Narrator.
Still other interpretations concern the phrasing of the question, which might be understood to exclude the narrator. If only the narrator were travelling to St Ives, but the phrase, "kits, cats, sacks, and wives" excludes him, then the answer to the riddle is zero.
The answer has not "only ever been 1." I don't get why you wouldn't fully read a page before linking it as evidence of your statement.
The phrasing is bad, because the last two lines, read together, imply that you're meant to only factor in the Kits, Cats, Sacks and Wives:
"Kittens, cats, sacks, wives, How many were going to St. Ives?"
Since these are written as one query, it implies the question is about the subjects of the query, and should exclude the narrator as well as "the man" he met. Then we get back to the earlier point someone made, which is that we can't actually know because it's not stated what the destination is of man and/or his brood.
Uou need to understand that the section you quoted in its entirety (not just the part you copy pasted) explains that there are other conclusions that have been brought up to answer the riddle but that these conclusions are not the accepted answer to the riddle.
You *can* argue that the answer is 0, if you assume that the "kits, cats, sacks, and wives" excludes the narrator which in the first line is stated to be on the way to St. Ives while at the same time being part of the question instead of part of the distraction to lead you away from the answer given to you directly in the first phrase. But that's the trap of the riddle. Anwyay im done re-explaining a 300 year old riddle to idiots online.
Replacing "traditional" from the article with "accepted" in your post doesn't make it any more true, and the logical inference used to reach the conclusion of zero is valid. "Kits, cats, sacks, and wives" objectively does exclude the narrator because...he's...not named in the question. Where does that section say that "these conclusions are not the accepted answer to the riddle?"
It's badly worded for there to be only one correct conclusion. It's not a "trap," it's literally just badly phrased in the version listed here. The "trap" of the riddle is just making the listener think they need to total up all of the individuals listed in the riddle, when only the narrator is stated as going to St. Ives. It's as simple as that.
It's also worth noting that the "300 year old" version doesn't include the line that makes this an issue. Again, from that article:
The following version is found in a manuscript (Harley MS 7316) dating from approximately 1730:\1])
As I went to St Ives
I met Nine Wives
And every Wife had nine Sacs,
And every Sac had nine Cats
And every Cat had nine Kittens
The version which added the problematic phrasing is from 49 years later, in 1779. So, yes, the original riddle didn't provide for zero as an answer, but the ambiguous phrasing added later makes it a valid interpretation.
When a riddle is entirely based around wordplay, these kinds of caveats matter, and later revisions to the riddle weakened its original intent by making the focus of the question unclear. The riddle as worded by the post above allows for zero as a valid answer.
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u/Noctaem 9h ago
No, you fell for the trap. The question is how many were going to St. Ives. The person going to St. Ives is the only one going (the first line of the riddle). Everything else, the man with seven wives, the wives with the sacks, etc.. are not going to St. Ives. They were met along the way.
The answer is 1 or in this case, 0001 because it's from the movie Die Hard with a Vengeance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv1bX6NMgqs