c4countdown

the age-old question, so, which came first ?

Not really suitable for games/puzzles, so moved to Off Topic

It's impossible to say because there's no suitable definition of a chicken that allows this question to be answered properly. Unless you're talking about eggs in general, in which case the answer is egg.

Assuming you mean chicken eggs and not general eggs, it's possible for a non-chicken to lay a chicken egg (by genetic mutation), but by definition it's not possible for a non-chicken egg to produce a chicken, so it must have been the egg.

What Charlie said. Heck! We actually agreed on something!

There's a HEYlarious cartoon somewhere of a chicken and an egg in bed with an egg smoking a fag and a chicken looking unfulfilled. Do you see what they did there? As I mentioned; HEYlarious.

Assuming Darwinism, I reckon a long, long time ago (IAGFFA) that there was probably a chickenesque creature that didn't meet the criteria of a chicken but still laid what we would invariably describe as an egg, so I vote egg.

Can we vote on something more interesting now, like what tastes better on toast?

M. George Quinn wrote:Can we vote on something more interesting now, like what tastes better on toast?

What are the options?

Charlie Reams wrote:Assuming you mean chicken eggs and not general eggs, it's possible for a non-chicken to lay a chicken egg (by genetic mutation), but by definition it's not possible for a non-chicken egg to produce a chicken, so it must have been the egg.

So is an x-egg by definition an egg that produces an x rather than one produced by an x? Unfertilised eggs of course don't produce chickens...

Of course it's an egg. ANDIESEGG to be precise.

Michael Wallace wrote:

M. George Quinn wrote:Can we vote on something more interesting now, like what tastes better on toast?

What are the options?

I was going to stick with egg or chicken?

In what case I should've said which...

I'm changing my avatar I can't even take myself seriously.

The egg!

Why fix an old joke when it's not broken!

Gary Male wrote:Not really suitable for games/puzzles, so moved to Off Topic

no probs

Of course that's ok with Gary!

No matter which came first, both are lovely to eat , but I will say eggs.

Charlie Reams wrote:Assuming you mean chicken eggs and not general eggs, it's possible for a non-chicken to lay a chicken egg (by genetic mutation), but by definition it's not possible for a non-chicken egg to produce a chicken, so it must have been the egg.

IAWTP.

However, this is a forum primarily about a word game. So I believe Eoin was tryng to trick us. I believe the 'correct' answer is: the Chicken. It comes first in the dictionary.

Dinos Sfyris wrote:Of course it's an egg. ANDIESEGG to be precise.

You make me chuckle

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:Assuming you mean chicken eggs and not general eggs, it's possible for a non-chicken to lay a chicken egg (by genetic mutation), but by definition it's not possible for a non-chicken egg to produce a chicken, so it must have been the egg.

So is an x-egg by definition an egg that produces an x rather than one produced by an x? Unfertilised eggs of course don't produce chickens...

The point being of course if you use the definitions that Charlie's implicitly using, a normal unfertilised egg that you eat wouldn't be called a chicken egg, because it doesn't produce a chicken.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:Assuming you mean chicken eggs and not general eggs, it's possible for a non-chicken to lay a chicken egg (by genetic mutation), but by definition it's not possible for a non-chicken egg to produce a chicken, so it must have been the egg.

So is an x-egg by definition an egg that produces an x rather than one produced by an x? Unfertilised eggs of course don't produce chickens...

The point being of course if you use the definitions that Charlie's implicitly using, a normal unfertilised egg that you eat wouldn't be called a chicken egg, because it doesn't produce a chicken.

I said that a non-chicken egg can't produce a chicken. That doesn't mean a chicken egg must produce a chicken.

Charlie Reams wrote:I said that a non-chicken egg can't produce a chicken. That doesn't mean a chicken egg must produce a chicken.

I was half-expecting that answer. So basically what we're saying is that if an x produces an egg and that egg produces a y, it is a y egg. But if an x produces an egg which produces nothing itself, it is an x egg. I think it's a bit dubious myself. It should be a nothing egg rather than a chicken egg!

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:I said that a non-chicken egg can't produce a chicken. That doesn't mean a chicken egg must produce a chicken.

I was half-expecting that answer. So basically what we're saying is that if an x produces an egg and that egg produces a y, it is a y egg. But if an x produces an egg which produces nothing itself, it is an x egg. I think it's a bit dubious myself. It should be a nothing egg rather than a chicken egg!

No, I'm not saying that. It could be that there's some other feature of the egg which distinguishes it as a chicken egg (I have no idea what.)

Or we could put the definition the other way round and say that an x always produces an x-egg (by definition), but an x-egg may not produce an x, in which case obviously the chicken came first. I guess that's an easier way to handle things.

Charlie Reams wrote:

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:I said that a non-chicken egg can't produce a chicken. That doesn't mean a chicken egg must produce a chicken.

I was half-expecting that answer. So basically what we're saying is that if an x produces an egg and that egg produces a y, it is a y egg. But if an x produces an egg which produces nothing itself, it is an x egg. I think it's a bit dubious myself. It should be a nothing egg rather than a chicken egg!

No, I'm not saying that. It could be that there's some other feature of the egg which distinguishes it as a chicken egg (I have no idea what.)

Or we could put the definition the other way round and say that an x always produces an x-egg (by definition), but an x-egg may not produce an x, in which case obviously the chicken came first. I guess that's an easier way to handle things.

As long as your eggs aren't all in one basket.

Gavin Chipper wrote:As long as your eggs aren't all in one basket.

What do you call the situation when a farmer could have anything from 52 to 54 eggs?
Three-range eggs.

Chicken.

Jon O'Neill wrote:Chicken.

Genius.

Charlie Reams wrote:No, I'm not saying that. It could be that there's some other feature of the egg which distinguishes it as a chicken egg (I have no idea what.)

Or we could put the definition the other way round and say that an x always produces an x-egg (by definition), but an x-egg may not produce an x, in which case obviously the chicken came first. I guess that's an easier way to handle things.

That one might want to put the definition the other way round was sort of my point anyway.

Gavin Chipper wrote:

Charlie Reams wrote:No, I'm not saying that. It could be that there's some other feature of the egg which distinguishes it as a chicken egg (I have no idea what.)

Or we could put the definition the other way round and say that an x always produces an x-egg (by definition), but an x-egg may not produce an x, in which case obviously the chicken came first. I guess that's an easier way to handle things.

That one might want to put the definition the other way round was sort of my point anyway.

Yep, sure. Maybe the whole question is just supposed to spark a debate about definitions, which is pretty pointless but there we are. I originally thought that it was pretty arbitrary but you make a good case for it being that an egg laid by an x must be an x-egg.

Charlie Reams wrote:Yep, sure. Maybe the whole question is just supposed to spark a debate about definitions, which is pretty pointless but there we are. I originally thought that it was pretty arbitrary but you make a good case for it being that an egg laid by an x must be an x-egg.

I also considered it to be pretty arbitrary but since you went for one option I thought it would best to disagree.