Comparing Apples to Oranges

They're all the odd one out

art by The Mycoleum

On long car journeys with the kids, we used to play a game: which is the odd one out, an apple, an orange, or a banana?

The answer is obvious: a banana, of course.

The reason? It has “a” in front of it, where the others have “an”.

Or is the reason that orange and apple are both spherical, whereas a banana is… banana shaped.

Or perhaps the apple is the odd one out, because you don’t have to peel it to eat it.

Or is the orange the odd one out, because, because…

Because it’s the only one that has a colour named after it?

The same game can be played with any 3 things.

(3, by the way, is a magic number. No time here to explain why)

3 things could be a monkey, a leopard, and an octopus. Or they could be a plate of spaghetti, an articulated lorry, and God.

The weird thing is, you can always do it. The lorry and God are both huge, spaghetti and articulated lorries are both things you might see every day, and spaghetti and God… well for some people, spaghetti is a god.

I can’t remember where I first learned this game, I’m sure it wasn’t my own invention.

I used to assume that everyone knows it. And yet… I’ve never found another person who’s played it.

Making links, finding unexpected similarities… that’s creativity. Discovering things nobody’s thought of before.

Now you do it: monkey, leopard, octopus.

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