[Ads-l] Motto: Speed Quality Price. Pick any Two [A derivative saying]

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sun Jun 4 05:07:58 UTC 2023


> On Jun 3, 2023, at 7:33 PM, Mark Mandel <markamandel at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> I have a saying in the same format for a(n ,ir)religious topic. Skip the
> rest of this letter if you are easily offended by things that might look
> blasphemous to you.
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> .
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> Omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent. Pick two.
> 
> I'm pretty sure I didn't invent the saying but I don't remember where I got
> it, and I know I didn't invent the idea.
> 
> 
> Mark Mandel
> 

Not hardly new, but I thought of it (synchronicity strikes!) in doing the current NYT double-crostic (hoping your spoiler alert scopes over that as well). Clearly it’s "pick *at most* two”, and I believe the point goes back several hundred years, although usually put differently (If God is A and B, he’s not C, etc.) The tricky bit is how to map speed, quality, and price onto the three properties ascribed to the Deity.    

LH
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