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I exclaimed, SIX! *giggle* And then realized I should be naming a vegetable, which prompted the mundane carrot. Ugh.
Posts: 1777 | Registered: Jan 2003
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I'm wondering why seemingly if not 98% of the people say carrot, at least a larger majority of people say carrot in adverse to any other vegetable (or thing that might be mistaken as a vegetable). But why? I went back to look at the original post for clues...and then noticed that when it asks you to think of a vegetable, it tells you to "arrow down" in adverse to scroll down, I'm not sure about how other people think, but I personally imagined an arrow pointing down when it said that (as I imagined the number six in the back of my head earlier), and I matched a vegetable that fit the shape of the arrow...the first that came to mind was the carrot, I suppose the reason I thought of a carrot in adverse to say a turnip or a white radish is because it's either more popular, or because right before I was thinking of how many I needed to put into the beef stew that I'll be cooking for dinner tonight...any other thoughts? Satyagraha
Posts: 1986 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I've been asking people on AIM: "Don't think about it! Just say a name of a vegetable!" and I keep getting carrot.
I don't think the sixes or arrows have anything to do with it -- carrots are simply ubiquitous in our culture. A Google search pulled up 1,430,000 results for "carrot"!
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Then what about other vegetables? Google pulls up over 4,000,000 when you look for tomatoes (I know, fruit), and potatoes. Though my argument is shot to high hell because that's how you asked people online. Though the sixes come into play as it completely clears your mind of anything else... Satyagraha
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I read Pooka's thread first, got tomato, then thought "Is that a vegetable? Hmmmm... Should have thought carrot - that's a vegetable." So gues what I thought of when reading this thread?
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I saw a picture of a carrot in my mind, but I couldn't find the word, so I said potato. I'm part of the 2%, but am I also senile? Because if so I'm scared. 16 is too young to be senile.
Posts: 981 | Registered: Aug 2003
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i thought of cabbage. does this have anything to do with me not being american? maby like, chineese people think differently or something?(i'm not chinese either but thats not the point
Posts: 109 | Registered: Nov 2003
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I don't know why, but I thought of a rutabaga, and I have never even seen one in my life. But, I always think of the weirdest things when asked spur of the moment questions like that.
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I find it interesting that everyone who said "potato" had second thoughts about it. Is a potato inherently a wishy-washy sort of vegetable?
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Tom, it has far less nutritional value than your average vegetable. And that's before it's fried, slathered with butter, or anything else.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I thought of a carrot, but ask me to think of a vegetable a hundred times and I'll say carrot a hundred times because that's the only vegetable I ever think of.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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On yahoo, there were 900,000 for carrot and over 3 million for tomato. Of course tomato doesn't count because its a fruit.
Posts: 3446 | Registered: Jul 2002
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The first time I did this, many moons ago, I said "asparagus." I had just had some to eat, though, which could have skewed the results. This time, it was around the second addition question that I thought, "Oh, I'm supposed to think of a carrot." So my results were skewed this time, too.
I'm skeptical of nearly every percentage that sounds untrue. Someone tried a "tell the gender of the child" formula and claimed it was correct 96% of the time. So when it's wrong once, it's correct for 24 other people? Get any random sample of 25 and I guarantee it's wrong more than once. And get any fifty people, Hatrackers or no, and more than one will say something other than a carrot.
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I thought "potato." Then I thought, "wait, is a potato a vegetable?" So then I thought "broccoli." (sp?) And then I thought, "no, potatoes are definitely vegetables," but I decided I liked "broccoli" better anyway, so I stuck with that.
I think you may be onto something, Frisco, with that autism thing and response time (even though you were mostly joking). I tend to process very slowly, and I often come up high on some of those autism tests.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Dec 2002
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Well the arrow down theory would actually apply to cucumber too.
I must have had some sort of free assosciation going on in my brain. I saw orange and my first thought was an orange, then I went wait, that's a fruit, ok carrot.
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I thought apricots...then realized that wasn't a correct answer and thought tomato. Then I thought, is it a fruit too? But then I thought that while it's a "fruit" we use it in cooking as a vegetable so that's my final answer. Tomato.
Posts: 862 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Not a veggie? Never heard that before. As someone else said earlier (maybe not about cukes, but it fits) - It goes on a salad? It's a vegetable.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
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I'd just like to point out (in support of the "arrow down" hypothesis) that the words "carrot" and "arrow" share a common substring (whose length is left as an exercise for the reader).
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
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I think I thought of cucumber because I'm moving, and I looked through the fridge yesterday, and I realized that the only fresh vegetable I own is a cucumber in the bottom drawer, and now I'm scared to open the drawer because I have no idea when I bought it.
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First I tought of a carrot. Then I thought of a ferrit. Then Barret (from FF7.) Then the word merit. Posts: 1 | Registered: Nov 2003
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quote: I thought carrot too, but my friend's response was elderberry. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I think she created her own percentile.
That was hilarious.
I expected Bob to make me laugh. I like this response better.
And yes, I thought of Carrot. Happy. Must mean I'm not in the elite 2% of the carrot hating culture. Well, I like carrots (some say a little too much, but hey, keep my private life out of this discussion, besides, it was single and free on a Saturday night and I needed someone to take to the Prom, but I digress). I like Carrots, and I'll say carrots as often as I like. If the Tomato Lobby, or the Squid Squad think they are better because they were more original, well I don't care what you Asparagus Nazi's say. I'm a Carrot Lover and proud of it.
Ooops, apparently its time for my medication.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I can think of three possible explanations: 1) The correlation between the number six and the number of letters in "carrot". (This would cover those who said "potato" and "tomato" as well) 2)The visual that "ARROw" has four letters in the smae sequence as in "cARROt". 3)The correlation between the word "arrow" and "carrot"(ARR-ow, cARRot, talking about sounds here - those who said tomatO and potatO might have been focusing on the O in arrOw).
Considering the 98% thing(assuming it's true), I think it would be a combination of of 2 and 3. I just flat out don't believe number 1 because I don't think there's an association between six and all the words in my brain that have six letters.
Btw, I said tomato.
Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote: I find it interesting that everyone who said "potato" had second thoughts about it. Is a potato inherently a wishy-washy sort of vegetable?
First of all, don't potatoes need washing more than most other vegetables, accounting for the wishy-washity? Second, I didn't have seconds thoughts when I picked potato, I just couldn't think of the word for carrot! Posts: 981 | Registered: Aug 2003
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I have never seen one of these before. On the other thread I thought of Carrot. On this one, I thought of Potato. I think it had something to do with the numbers, though. I always associate the number 7 with carrots for some reason.
Posts: 46 | Registered: Nov 2003
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By the way, I don't buy the whole "if it goes on a salad" criterion. One of my favorite salads (I first had it at my father-in-law's restaurant) is baby field greens, toasted walnuts, roquefort cheese, green apple slices, with a raspberry vinaigrette, and I think you'd have a hard time calling walnuts or apples vegetables.
OK, so I've now described my favorite salad, properly spelled the word "vinaigrette," and thought of a cucumber. I'm sure that there must be a pattern here, but I don't know what it is.
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Hmm, I dunno about patterns, but I think I'll make cucumber salad and Waldorf salad for the next Shinda. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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i thought of a tomato, even though i've known for a while that a tomato's really a fruit. wonder what that's about .... Posts: 91 | Registered: Nov 2003
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About the comments on the number of letters in a word - I totally do that, probably because I'm a math person. When I can't remember someone's name, I can always seem to remember the number of letters in their name... weirdness. Oh well.
Posts: 22 | Registered: May 2003
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Technically tomatoes are fruit. However, there was some sort of lawsuit, and it was determined that legally (for import/export/tax purposes) tomatoes are a vegetable. So it's both. Technically fruit, legally vegetable. Um...Yeah. *tries to comprehend*
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But, I always think of the weirdest things when asked spur of the moment questions like that. ![[Blushing]](graemlins/blushing.gif)
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And that's before it's fried, slathered with butter, or anything else.
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We never eat okra!
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to Moose. ![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
