The Puzzle That Stumped a Nation: “How Old Is Anne?”

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. We had a great question from Deanna Eby. She’s a retired school teacher in Michigan, and she was reading some of the early work of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Now, long before Wilder wrote Little House on the Prairie, she worked as a journalist chronicling life in the Ozarks. And in one of her early writings in 1916, Wilder refers to what she calls the famous question, how old is Anne? It’s like a rhetorical question. She doesn’t bother to explain it, but there’s a footnote in the text indicating that that question, how old is Anne, actually means simply, who knows?

So our listener Deanna wanted to know why it is that this question, how old is Ann, ever came to mean who knows. And that sent us on a wonderful romp, because it turns out that in 1903, a man sent the New York Press newspaper a puzzle, and it goes like this.

Mary is 24 years old. She is twice as old as Ann was when she was as old as Ann is now.

How old is Anne now? Person A says the answer is 16. Person B says the answer is 12, which is correct.

Now, let me give that to you one more time. Mary is 24 years old. She’s twice as old as Anne was when she was as old as Anne is now. How old is Anne now, 16 or 12?

And this question sparked a huge controversy. The newspaper was inundated with letters to the editor, and people sent in all kinds of different answers, all sure that they were the ones who were right.

And there were letters that had all these algebraic calculations in them. Everybody had a strong opinion, and they.

Were laughing at each other’s answers. And overnight, this question, how old is Ann, became the talk of New York City.

And then other newspapers picked it up, and people started writing into those newspapers with their answers, and newspapers all over the country started writing about that phenomenon.

One newspaper said, this simple mathematical question has conquered the students at Harvard University and is now exciting those of New York City and Philadelphia.

All New England is struggling with its comprehensive grasp. Pencil and slate factories are experiencing a period of.

Prosperity never before known. Oh, I’m sure. Pencils and slates just selling out across the country. I’m just figuring it out. I doubt that, but okay. And Grant, I’m looking at a page from the New Orleans Times Democrat, and it has no fewer than 47 letters to the editor on one page all about this.

So to sum up, in 1903, this phrase, how old is Anne, went viral, and it became a catchphrase meaning who knows and it was something that Laura Ingalls Wilder thought everybody knew well enough 13 years later to use to mean who knows. But is it a math puzzle or is it a word puzzle or is it a combo of the two? Maybe it’s a combo of the two. I struggled and struggled and struggled with this. I was sure that the answer is 12 but I’ve looked it up in a few sources and they say the answer is 18.

18. Okay. Yeah. And when I plugged that number in, it worked, but yeah. But yeah, try, try plugging in 18, but you know, we may hear from people, maybe the same thing is going to happen now. You know, it went viral in 1903 and now it’s going to go viral in this year. Now look what you’ve done, Martha. Well, we will put it on the website if it’s not my fault.

It’s Ann’s. All you Ann’s out there. Yeah, Ann, you beautiful rule-breaking moth, as Leslie Knope once said to Ann Perkins on Parks and Rec. Well, we will put the puzzle on our website if you didn’t get the wording when Martha read it out.

And you can tell us what you think. You can let us know how old Ann was. And if you’ve got a puzzle of your own that you’d like to have us puzzle out with you, we’ve got a phone number that’s toll free in the United States and Canada, 877-929-9673.

And you can email us words@waywordradio.org. And there are a bunch of social media links on our website at waywordradio.org.