Even numbers were the goodies and odd numbers were the baddies.
Two even numbers added together would get along fine and make another even number. (2+2=4)
Two odd numbers added together would fight and an even number would then come stand there when they had killed each other.(3+3=6)
An odd with an even would fight but the baddie would win because he was strong. (2+3=5) I was always a little scared of this.
I worked all this out in about year three, then was amazed to find it came in useful in year 9 maths. To this day I think of the odd numbers as being antisocail.
A childhood belief about counting
others believed things like this
- I used to believe that numbers had gender, that the odd numbers were boys and even numbers were girls. — Evelyn
- I used to believe that after the number "ten" came the numbers "tendy-one, tendy-two..." etc.Anon
- Numbers went up to 100 then restarted at zero.Anon
- The highest of all numbers was "a finnety."— Becky
- i used to belive that 1 to 10 were the only numbers and all others were made up.....— Eric
- I used to believe there was a limit on the numbers you could count — Carmen