# Another poorly designed puzzle **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [January 13, 2018, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518 "2018-01-13T07:27:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518/41 "2018-01-15T16:14:13Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Is the waist actually a “hole”? If I told you I had a hole in my shirt, of course you would not think I was referring to the waist, sleeves, or neck. “Hole in a shirt” customarily means a flaw, tear, or wear in the shirt causing a hole that should not be there. Some shirts have button holes; they’re not a flaw or tear, but “hole” is right in the name. > [@Chronos](#): > > Oh, and we also can’t put any upper bound on the number of holes in the portion of the shirt we can’t see. Ordinarily, a shirt would have at most one unintended hole, because once a shirt has one, it’ll get thrown out. On another hand, does use of the word “shirt” in the puzzle imply a certain number of holes to begin with? The question doesn’t ask “how many holes are in this piece of cloth?” I’ve never seen a shirt that didn’t have something to put your arms through. Can the neck, waist, and sleeves be considered implicit parts of the shirt, or it wouldn’t be a shirt? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518/42 "2018-01-15T16:27:24Z")
Maybe, which is why I referred to “unintended holes”. Though as **brossa** points out, not all shirts do have a neck hole (or waist hole, if that’s even a thing): A shirt can also open in the front, and be secured by buttons (which have holes), or a zipper (which doesn’t), or velcro (which doesn’t unless you count the loops in the vel, in which case it has oodles of holes). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518/43 "2018-01-15T16:52:58Z")
I think we should accept the basic premises of the puzzle. 1. We should treat the drawing as if it were the object that it depicts. 2. We should accept that the object is described as a shirt and has normal shirt-like properties. 3. We should accept that the visual evidence leads to the most obvious conclusions. 4. We should not hypothesize ideas for which we do not have visual evidence. 5. We should accept that an intentional or unintentional opening can be a hole. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2018, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518/44 "2018-01-15T16:53:36Z")
Of course, the sleeves are tubes with a hole at each end, so the answer is 10 holes. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518/45 "2018-01-18T19:10:21Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Of course, the sleeves are tubes with a hole at each end, so the answer is 10 holes. The sleeves are attached to the shirt so there are no holes there. Unless you consider the sleeves to be separate items from the shirt. But if so, the holes in the sleeves don’t count as holes in the shirt. ---
**Author:** ![Unpronounceable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9de0a6/32.png) [@Unpronounceable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unpronounceable)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2018, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518/46 "2018-01-18T22:40:48Z")
I’ve seen some women’s shirts that were front-only - the back was string-ties. So, AFAICT, the best answer is “no less than two.” If you want to get _really_ pedantic - cloth is woven thread, so… ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2018, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518/48 "2018-11-15T05:50:32Z")
I’m going to go with “four, and the apparent holes in the front are green splotches”. Reason: You can clearly see the shadow of the shirt’s outline on the green background all around the outside of the shirt. There is no shadow visible at the ‘holes’. There would be if the holes were real - or even more likely, you would be able to see a ragged edge of the holes in the back of the shirt somewhere around the edge of the front holes. Therefore they’re green splotches, not holes. Shirt belongs to a painter. Nice neat finish they put on that wall behind… ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2018, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518/50 "2018-11-15T20:08:40Z")
My answer is, “At least seven, but there’s no way of knowing exactly how many because there may be holes in the back of the shirt that are obscured by the front of the shirt” ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2018, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518/51 "2018-11-15T20:27:34Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > My answer is, “At least seven, but there’s no way of knowing exactly how many because there may be holes in the back of the shirt that are obscured by the front of the shirt” I’m right there with you. Once the proposed “solution” opened up the door to the possibility of holes in the back of the shirt as well, there’s no way to know. There might be dozens. The question should be phrased more like, “how many holes _can you count_ in this shirt?” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2018, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518/52 "2018-11-15T21:27:19Z")
Aside: **Aspidistra** didn’t bump this thread. That was a spammer, who was unpersoned. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2018, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518/53 "2018-11-17T06:43:28Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > My answer is, “At least seven, but there’s no way of knowing exactly how many because there may be holes in the back of the shirt that are obscured by the front of the shirt” I would also go with “Seven.” But **Inner Stickler** makes a good point in #37: based on that “Six” might be a good answer, making the assumption that much of the back of the shirt has been completely torn away. (This shirt doesn’t appear to have a hard-to-break seam at the waist.) Some answers in the thread ignore that the Puzzle question specifically refers to “a shirt” not to a picture of a shirt. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Yes, if you bring topology into it, it opens up some new possibilities. As you note, if you take a balloon and cut two holes in it, you have the same topological identity as a donut. They’re both cylinders, just with different proportions. Nitpick: To turn a sphere into a torus, don’t you need to glue the two edges to each other after cutting the two holes? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-poorly-designed-puzzle/806518.md?page=2)