The barber paradox as bad technical writing
Thursday, June 24th, 2010 08:02In the unlikely event that you haven't heard of it already, the barber paradox is:
The barber [who is the only barber in town] shaves every man who does not shave himself. Does the barber shave himself?
Now, this can be considered just logically contradictory, or a gotcha (“the barber is a woman”). But how about considering it as a poorly-written specification? Under this principle I propose a correction:
The barber shaves every man who would not otherwise be shaved.