On Fri, May 11, 2001 at 04:29:25PM +0900, Luigi Ballabio wrote:
> At 10:42 AM 5/11/01 +0900, Hal E. Fulton wrote:
> 
> >The third error is that "three" should be "two."
> 
> But if "three" should be "two", then there are three errors in the 
> sentence. Therefore, "three" is correct. Therefore, there are two errors in 
> the sentence. Therefore, "three" should be "two". Therefore...

First let me say, that I did not invent this sentence myself. I
stumbled across it in English in the signature of the BogoMips
mini-Howto at http://www.clifton.nl/bogomips.html:
   This sentence have three erors

I liked it, so I translated it into German. Maybe I should add some
rules to the configuration of my mail client, so that the English
version is used when posting to international lists. :-)

Now to the explanation: 
- First, it causes confusion: People spot only two mistakes because
  they are so obvious and cannot find the last one.

- Second, it contains a subtle message: Do not be fooled by the two
  mistakes that are easy to find. The third mistake is of different
  nature.

  Actually all three errors are different: One is spelling mistake,
  the second a grammatical error (which is not clear in the German
  translation) and the third a logical one.

- In the end, yes, this also is paradox: If it really is an error that
  there is no third error, then there is a third error. Just like the
  sentence 'This is a lie'.

-- 
marko schulz

                          Dieser Satz beinhalten drei Fehller.