Half Price for Halfwits

The level of numeracy in this country isn’t great, but I was still dismayed and amused to see this in Boots yesterday:

Half price ready reckoner

Fri 28th Dec 2007, 2:03pm GMT

Comments

This was being discussed on a forum earlier today, and someone put forward the argument that it's for people who suffer from dyscalculia.
I'm sure it might, but I also think it caters for a far greater percent of the population who are just a bit thick.

— Daniel, 30th Dec, 11:42pm

Yeah, some people have specific problems with numbers, and the post title could be considered offensive, but listing halved integers is still bizarre.
(To be fair to Boots, maybe the 'ready reckoner' thing is an initiative that's really intended for more complicated discounts like 33% off, and they just stuck with it at 50% for consistency?)

— Matt Round, 1st Jan, 2:47pm

I would think that the number of people with some kind of basic math disorder would be a small fraction of the population, small enough to be insignificant.
Perhaps Europeans are just as spoiled and entitled and lame brained as Americans seem to be. Perhaps the radical muslims have a point (if misguided methods).

— boB, 6th Jan, 7:34pm

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