What if you shuffle the cards on a treadmill while you solve the equation? Huh?

This is a good problem for an English major. It's analogous to a poorly written sentence; proper punctuation would clear up the meaning.

+1 above.

do math people call parentheses, "brackets" 'cause I still see no brackets in that equation.

thank goodness I slept through three years of algebra so I could stay awake during english

No, English people do, apparently.

the ANSWER is cock

What is in that vagina, Alex?

beeep beeep beeep beeep

Yes, monkey?

What is "in the mouf" Alex.

correct

so, the "brackets" in the order of operations refers to parentheses? what do English people call brackets?

and why would you want to multiply, when the equation clearly reads, "forty-eight divided by . . . "

very confusing! am frankly glad that I don't know the answer and don't need to know the answer!

I agree with the folks that have already said that this is an ambiguously written problem.

As a thread starter and fuel for conversation, it's pretty good.

As a example arithmetic question, it is poorly written, if the intent was to help the student learn about the order of operations.

In Flint's opening post, he says

Others have given the (pretty easy) justification for why "2" is the answer; I've seen justifications for "288". Which is correct? Well, that depends on the author, doesn't it? Well, Flint? What is the correct answer, and why?

I could just as easily say the correct answer is "???" because it says so right there in the thread title. That's "correct", isn't it? I could say "the correct answer is what the teacher says is the correct answer" or "whatever gets me an A on this test". Those answers are equally valid given the level of ambiguity here. What if we're assuming this equation is written in base 10 but it's really base 12? Then the "correct" answer would be just as uncertain given the way it's written, but it wouldn't be 2 or 288. After all, (skyshide), since we should make the fewest assumptions, assuming base 12 is equally likely as base 10, and both sufficiently explain the data already given.

So, as a plain arithmetic problem, I say the answer is 2.

If it's not plain arithmetic, then that's an entirely different problem.

Oh Lordy, Miss O'Hara, Tara is all but deserted -the yankees have done taken all the darkies and trampled all the cotton. Looks like you're just going to have to do the work for yourself. Ain't no-one to pump your gas now or -Lord forbid you should blister your poor dainty fingers- type "brackets" into Wikipedia and see what comes up.

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

--e.e. cummings

Possum Pbweed.:p:

It may be intended to teach the left to right convention.

I'd like "names for male animals" for $1,000.

not sure where the southern/yankee thing comes in?

Rather than relying on Wikipedia so you can turn around and belittle the poster for that, as above, I turned to Websters Dictionary, which defines brackets as:

"either of the pair of signs [ ], or sometimes < > used to enclose a word or words inserted as for explanation, quantities to be taken as a single quantity, etc."

parentheses are not mentioned.