Why We Englishy-Types Don't Do Mathy Things

I've never claimed to be anything that I'm not, well, other than allowing folks to think I'm a redhead and not really correcting people who assume that I'm essentially perfect, but on the really core things, I'm pretty good at admitting my own shortcomings. As such, I'm submitting the following statement:

I'm a fucking moron when it comes to math.

Seriously. And I'm not even giving to hyperbole as is my natural tendency. I swear on Pythagoras, Newton and even the beloved Aristotle that I'm just about two steps over incompetent when it comes to anthing that involves "computations" or "figuring" or "forumlas". For some of you, this is probably incomprehensible because I have some very smart friends--some of whom even make their living doing all sorts of bizarre things with numbers that I can't even fathom (hello, Cary and Tonya)--but for me, math might as well be presented in Russian pig Latin because I'm totally and completely bumfuzzled by pretty much all of it.

There are those who would be embarrassed to admit this. Me? Not so much. You see, I've come to embrace my complete lack of mathmatical comprehension. Really, there's no sense in fighting it--one might as well try to make a lefty thread a needle with their right-hand as make me figure algebra. It's against my nature, you see. I'm a word person, not a number person--or I should say an abstract and concept person, not a concrete and application person, since I do very much enjoy a nice Suduko-- and it's time that those who are of my ilk stand tall and be proud.

We Englishy types have a tremendous skill set that should be embraced; we create something from nothing. We dissect the written word and add to the breadth and depth of the human experience...or at least give folks something to read in the bathroom or on the subway and I think there's a universal appreciation of either one of those contributions. The fact that we can't figure out percentages without a calculator, a forumla and a quizzical look is really irrevelavant in the grand scheme of life because, honestly, when is one NOT going to be able to find some sort of calculator-things on the Internet or a little cheat sheet for your wallet to help you with that? Ratios? I mean, really? Ditto on that one. Area, volume, blah, blah, blah...in this day and age, one can buy any mannner of little gizmos to measure and calculate the stuff for you. All one has to do is point and click and make the laser stand straight and then hit enter. Trained chimps are capable of that...but can they craft a poem? Are they able to make someone cry from laughing or yell at their computer monitor simply by writing a paragraph? I think not. They can fling poo, swing around on ropes, play with toys and solve puzzles and puzzles=math when you get right down to it, so, well, you see the correlation, don't you? I mean, I took statistics for my doctorate program (and actually made a B) and I'm sure that I could make that work given the time and the effort and the right little computer program with which to run some sort of T-test or whatnot.

Englishy people are entirely too creative and nuturing to be worried with the constraints of something like a formula. Mathy folks like to do things in a certain order and if you screw up and multiply before you've added your dear Aunt Sally or whatever, then nothing you do after that will be correct. Or, if you've been asked to create some sort of statistical analysis, half a page of work can be for naught simply because you accidently forgot that 2x2 was 4 and not, say, 2 and then you'd have to erase an entire page of work and start all over again with a ridiculous table of numbers and you'd be worrying about running out of time on your exam, so you'd start to stress...well, uh, you get the picture. Math is very structured and confining--one could almost compare it to a jail of the mind, I think.

English? It's free and flowing. We let you put subjects and verbs just about anywhere you please. Want a sentence with one word? Fine. How about a sentence that has two hundred words? Go right ahead. If you can't think of just the right word, then by all means, just make one up. We're not elitist. You don't have to be some dead Greek in order to have control with the Englishy...even if we do pay an inordinate amount of attention to commas and Shakespeare, we're really very flexy on just about anything when you get right down to it. Some where along the way, we realized that we could have rules just like the Mathy folks, but we could also adapt those rules so that more people could play and, to be perfectly honest, so that we wouldn't all have to do the detail thing that some of us aren't really so great at. Voila! If you're an Englishy type, you may create your own style. Doesn't that sound divine? How very dashing and all, and there's just no way in the world that a Mathy person could ever get away with creating a new style for doing calculus. How dreary is that? The one time that anyone really tried to be adventurous in math was when the idea of New Math came along and, while I'm not even sure to this day what that was, it was pretty much roundly criticized by whom? Mathy types, of course. They're very proprietary, methinks.

My real estate class has served to highlight what I already knew--I'm not so much of a detail person. One has to be to be a Mathy person. I'm forever forgetting a decimal here or a zero there and, unlike a rough draft, it actually, uh, matters in figuring out interest rates or market values. There isn't a Math Check, which is just a damn shame, because it would really make things easier.

I'd like to be able to have a calculator that allowed me to choose a task, say, "Capitalization Rate" (I know, you don't really give a damn about a Cap Rate, either, but play along, just don't ask me to explain it because, frankly, I can't) and then be presented with a screen. Sort of like Word does when I choose New Document. Then when I enter totally stupid figures that don't have a chance in hell of computing correctly, I'd like a nice squiggly green or red line and some text to alert me. For example, if I'm supposed to figure out the value of a property with a cap rate of 25% and a net yearly income of $15,000 per month, there's a myriad of problems that can arise.

You divided the percentage rate by the income a property generates. Note that the number you have could not possibly, in any currency, be converted to a value of any kind. The forumula is Rate/Income=Value.

See, how helpful that would be? Instead, I get this:

.0000192

And no helpful hint, no suggestions, nothing. For those of us who are more literal and, I'll admit it, spastic when using a calculator, there is now a conundrum of sorts.

1. Did I enter the numbers wrong?
2. Should this convert to something and if so, what?
3. Was I supposed to divide or multiply?
4. Damn, how do you move the decimal again? Did I put a decimal in the percent?
5. What was the question again?

So, we have to start all over. Obviously, even I can't make .00092 turn into a number that is even remotely representative of value, so if you flip the two, you can get this:

60000

Which at least could be a value, but it's wrong.

In order to figure Cap Rate, you should use the Net Yearly Income, not the Net Monthly Income, which anyone with a basic understanding of simple accounting or who had read the book would know.

Ha! Screw you, pretend real estate calculator and math and logical thinking and Mr. Pythagoras and Texas Instruments and even that stupid little pi. Phfffft. The fact that I'm not one with my algebraic self is of no consequence to me. My inability to string together long sets of numbers and come up with numbers that don't make my calculator go EEEE is irritating, yes, but look at all the words I can string along. So what if the most important Mathy thing that I really care about is Word Count or my PIN number? That's why God made bankers and CPAs and all those other Mathy people--to serve at the will of the Englishy, who will in turn, entertain the masses and shape culture and history for years to come with our finely crafted words and painstakingly edited bits of literary goodness.

Disclaimer: Of course, when I get my real estate license, I will pretend to be pseudo Mathy and turn all actual mathmatical stuff over to W. or some fine assistant if one of the numerous gadgets that I'll be purchasing should fail me. I do like that other numbery-thing--money--after all.