70. 67% [100 poems challenge]

70.          67%

67% it says,
67%;
I’m sure it’s really 2/3, you know;
2/3 is what they meant.
The difference is really minute, they’ll claim,
So small, you’d think it okay
To leave out the last of the decimals,
But I’ll be angry all day.
The fact is that it’s a recurring one,
Don’t you deny it’s not:
And so should be written properly
0.666…

2, 3 July 2013

Comments: This doesn’t entirely work (it’s not clear if you should say the 0 or not in the last line (my preference is not, but if you do you may want to drop the number of 6s back to two), and you definitely have to say “dot dot dot”, and you also have to be confident that 0.666… = 66.66…%), but it was kind of fun to write. Of course, it may really be 67% (or even 66.9% rounded up) but I saw it and immediately thought that someone has worked out 2/3 and rounded it up to write it as a percentage because many people just can’t cope with recurring decimals. The opportunity to have a maths rant was too good to refuse. Don’t get me started on the doubters who have trouble with 0.999… = 1.

It did strike me as odd that 67% should be number 70, however.

Themes to come: 71. Obsession; 72. Mischief Managed; 73. I Can’t; 74. Are You Challenging Me? 75. Mirror

Explanation about the 100 poems challenge here.