h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can someone please explain just HOW something, anything, can be /HALF/ empty.

Lets look at this:-
Half means the said unity divided by 2, making two equal portions of the initial quantity, ie 50% of it. So half a cake is only 50% of the cake that was. Half a thousand pounds means you only have £500 left and your now wondering just how you spent that last 500!

Empty - null, non existant mater, none, run out, lacking of liquid, 100% not there, not a lot, less than not a lot.....

So... if we have 'half empty' it means we have 50% of nothing, which is (what ever way you calculate it) still nothing. Therefore a glass that is 'half emply' is in fact empty.

Therefore the two statements under disscussion are refering to two completely un-compairable situations.

Yeliab

A glass containing nothing is empty.

If one half of the glass in question contains nothing, that half of the glass is empty. However, people are sloppy and tend to say "the glass is half empty" instead of "half of the glass is empty"

Alternately, the phrase "1/2 empty" is a description of the cup's potentional to be full.

Either way the glass is exactly twice as big as it needs to be at that moment in the time space continuinuinuinuinum!

Unless its an oversize glass to allow for a head on a beer!