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

A new medical building containing 100 offices has just been completed. Greebo was hired to paint the numbers 1 to 100 on the doors. How many times will Greebs have to paint the number "nine"?

20

20

AAAAAGH!
simulpost!

Eh... I'm Ottox.... Simpost....

4 "Just now". Will this be the 6th?

Or maybe I should say I'm H2G2 Choral Society
Sorry for any confusion, I hope it's OK!

nice one Ottox. 20 is my answer, but not being first, I shall go with Lost In Scotlands suggestion and ask some silly questions.

The answer could be 0 (zero) because Greebo could use the number '6' upsidedown. What colour is the paint, It could be a stamp and you only have to paint it once, and then stamp it 20 times, and so on and so forth, yadda, yadda, yadda.......
I am cracking up again

12 times.

*sigh*

Yes, I say 20, too late...

12 times.

Following on from the answer of 12, i.e. there would be 12 'nines' if Greebs was asked to paint numbers AS numbers. In which case, the answer to her current question would be 0, because she would not be painting the number 'nine' as a word.

11?

Unless it's in hex, of course.

Funny fact:
In norwegian the word for paintin is "maling"
The word for purring (like a cat) is .."maling"
Yup. That's the same word.

JAR, Zero Points

Whoopee! I'm late, but I still have a chance!

The answer is once. There is only one office "9." The offices numbered 19, 29, 39, 49, 59, 69, 79, 89 and all of the 90s have *different* numbers, none of which is nine.

For what it's worth, 11. Not better late than never.

I just want to know how Greebo manages to hold the paintbrush. And how long it takes to do all that painting with regular doughnut breaks.
(knocked off top slot at last )

And if the building had just been completed, why were the numbers not on the doors in the first place? Surely it hadn't been completed until the work was done?

I agree with d'Elaphant. Just once will she paint the NUMBER 9. She will paint the DIGIT 9 20 times though.

And if I run INTO the house, won't I be running ALL OF THE WAY into the house? It would be hard to shut the door if I only ran halfway into the house. I'll never let that question be till Greebo admits that halfway is NOT the correct answer.

24

That's my answer (assuming one looks at 6 as an upside-down 9)