Friday, August 22, 2008

The Haves and Have Nots

I obsess over little things, and here's something that's driving me crazy.

I have the latest edition of "Los Angeles Sports & Fitness", a free magazine that covers Southern California races. This issue is focusing on marathons, and the "Publisher's Note" has an unintentional brain twister. I will check and recheck and recheck my typing; I assure you what you read is EXACTLY as it was printed in the magazine:

"Have you completed a marathon? Odds are you haven't. And being a reader of this magazine, the odds are with you that you have run several marathons. But you probably haven't."

WTF?

I keep going over it again and again, trying to parse it. Is it saying I probably HAVE run a marathon? Or have NOT?

"Have you completed a marathon? Odds are you haven't."
OK, most people in the country have not run a marathon, so that makes sense.

"And being a reader of this magazine, the odds are with you that you have run several marathons."
Um, maybe he's trying to say that their readers are really dedicated, so chances are you haven't run ONE marathon but several.

"But you probably haven't."
Now I'm lost completely.

I can't figure out what he's trying to say or, if there is a typo, how it could possibly be fixed. I realize LAS&F isn't The New York Times, but seriously. Publisher Danny Greenberg must have been oxygen depleted or something when he wrote that.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Um, perhaps he's making the point that you may have run several marathons, but you probably didn't complete them.

2:51 PM  
Blogger Wedgie said...

Interesting theory hoolia... but then is the author saying "chances are, you're a big failure?"

3:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hmm, perhaps, so that then he can tell you just how reading LA S&F can fix you. Or perhaps he was just having a bad month and wanted to take it out on the masses!

3:35 PM  

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