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wvbdmp 12 hours ago

There is an old German joke from the comedy “Die Feuerzangenbowle”, where someone gives his name as “Pfeiffer, with 3 fs”, which is funny because it is robotically hypercorrect, since everybody knows the only necessary clarification is between “Pfeiffer” vs. “Pfeifer”, double-f vs. single f. So in a way “there are two rs in strawberry” is a much more human answer than 3 and not a mistake, because in any normal situation the asker is clearly just interested in the “berry” part. This weird sycophancy, however, is entirely preposterous and hopefully just an artifact of some deliberate “the customer is always right” policy corporate tacked on, rather than a fundamental limitation of the technology.

gdulli 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I've never been to Germany but for what it's worth when I hear "how many r's are in strawberry?" I'd never think of anything but 3. (I am human.) Asking how many r's are in the longest run of r's in strawberry is a whole different question and I don't know why somebody would assume that more complicated one.