What’s This 87 Outta 41 All About? Let Me Tell Ya!
You know, sometimes these young folks come askin’ me the darnedest things. Just the other day, this whippersnapper, he comes up and says, “Hey, what’s 87 outta 41?” And I’m like, “Huh? Boy, you talkin’ gibberish!” But then he kept on, babblin’ ’bout percentages and whatnot.
Now, I ain’t no fancy schoolteacher, but I got a good head on my shoulders. Been countin’ chickens and eggs since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. So, I figured, this 87 outta 41 thing, it’s gotta be like figurin’ out how many eggs I got left after sellin’ some at the market.
But here’s the thing, this 87, it’s bigger than the 41. Now that don’t make no sense, right? It’s like sayin’ I sold more eggs than I ever had in the first place! That boy and his numbers, they somethin’ else.
- Figuring it out, the old-fashioned way
- Maybe it’s a mistake?
- Or some newfangled math?
Anyways, I got to thinkin’. Maybe this ain’t about eggs. Maybe it’s about somethin’ else. Like, say you got 41 apples and you need 87. Well, you’re gonna need to get some more apples, ain’t ya? It’s kinda like bein’ short on flour when you’re bakin’ a pie. You gotta go to the store and get more.
Then it hit me! This young’un, he’s probably talkin’ ’bout them percentages. You know, like when they say, “Fifty percent off!” at the store. Only this time, it’s all backwards. It ain’t no discount, that’s for sure. It’s like… like payin’ extra for somethin’. Like when the price of gas goes up and you gotta cough up more money to fill your truck.
So, how do you figure out this 87 outta 41 thing? Well, if I was doin’ it my way, I’d say it’s more than a whole. More than everything you started with. Like, if you had 41 dollars and now you got 87, you got more than double what you had before. That’s pretty good, I reckon.
But these youngsters, they got their fancy ways of doin’ things. They divide and multiply and do all sorts of stuff I ain’t never learned in school. I heard ’em talkin’ ’bout takin’ the 87 and dividin’ it by the 41. And then they multiply that by 100, or somethin’. Makes my head spin just thinkin’ about it.
Here’s what they do, near as I can figure:
They take that 87 and put it on top, like it’s sittin’ on a fence post. Then they put that 41 underneath, like it’s standin’ on the ground. Then they do some kinda magic and get a number. And that number, it tells ya how much bigger the 87 is compared to the 41. Only they say it all fancy, like “percentage” or “proportion.” Land sakes!
And then they do this times 100 thing, I don’t know why. Maybe because 100 is a nice, round number? Makes it easy to understand, I guess.
Now, if you ask me, it’s all a bunch of hooey. But if that’s what them smart folks in the city do, then I guess it’s gotta be right. Just don’t ask me to explain it again, ’cause my brain’s about fried from all this thinkin’!
But one thing’s for sure, this 87 outta 41 thing, it’s a whole lotta somethin’ compared to that little 41. And if it was eggs or money, I’d be one happy old woman!
Just remember this, even if you got a whole bunch of numbers all jumbled up, a little common sense goes a long way. Whether you’re countin’ eggs, apples, or whatever, the important thing is to keep track of what you got and what you need. And don’t let them fancy city folks confuse you with their percentages and proportions!
So, next time somebody asks you about 87 outta 41, you just tell ’em it’s more than you started with. And that’s all there is to it! Unless you want to get into all that dividin’ and multiplyin’ stuff, which I ain’t got time for.
Anyways, I gotta go feed the chickens now. All this talkin’ about eggs has made me hungry!
Tags: [math, percentage, calculation, proportion, numbers, simple math, 87 of 41, arithmetic, math tricks, number comparison]
