how to say this?

[Arnold Zwicky]

On Aug 7, 2009, at 10:04 AM, Jon Lighter wrote (responding to me on
the question "how many people are you dining with today"; if you're
dining alone, the expected answer is 1, so i suggested that a
formulation that asked ):

> Any server can tell you you can't have a party with just one person,
> dude.
>
> It makes no sense.

i assume this is just playing with different senses of "party".
because "party of 1" has an established use in restaurant talk (you
leave your name and the number of people in your party, and the host
then calls you to a table: "Opal, party of 3; Adams, party of 1").

arnold

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