The barber paradox as bad technical writing

[kpreid]

In 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.

Comments

[kpreid.livejournal.com]

The latter. It is not tautological in that it implies that no one goes unshaven.