Easter 2009

rooster eggs

The term "rooster egg" has a new meaning for me.

Why would "rooster egg" have any meaning for me in the first place?

In an essay I wrote a few years ago, I mention "Uncle Raymond [who] is a famous logician. (Also a magician, a musician, and a mathematician. I'm not making this up. His stage name was Five-Ace Monty.)"

Most of his logic puzzles are fantastic. Some of his basic, introductory puzzles aren't his own, and these aren't always as great.

Here's one of them:

Question:

If a rooster lays an egg on the exact top point of a roof that slants off at 30° in one direction and 45° in the other, which side will the egg roll down?

Answer:

Roosters don't lay eggs.

Yeah? So? I know roosters don't normally lay eggs, but the puzzle doesn't assert that they do. It asks a conditional question. What if a rooster laid an egg…

Obviously the whole thing annoyed me enough to stick with me three decades.

But now I have a new association with the term. Benjamin asked me if we could look for rooster eggs in the back yard.

Rooster eggs? Is this some wild-goose-chase term he learned in preschool? No, apparently it's a small child's misunderstanding of what he overhears and what he dimly remembers from a year ago.

"Is it Rooster yet?" he asked.

"Ah! No, my boy. You mean Easter. Easter eggs. And no, it's not Easter quite yet."

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Postscript Nathalie points out that the basilisk (aka cockatrice) is born from a rooster's egg.