At work we somehow landed on the topic of how many holes a human has, which then evolved into a heated discussion on the classic question of how many holes does a straw have.

I think it’s two, but some people are convinced that it’s one, which I just don’t understand. What are your thoughts?

  • Badass_panda@lemmy.fmhy.ml
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    1 year ago

    A hollow cylinder has a single hole, with two openings. A hole can be open on one end only (e.g., a well is a hole in the ground), or it can have multiple openings (e.g., a straw has a hole with two openings).

    If one cannot immediately tell whether two openings are connected to one another, then one assumes they are not; e.g., if you see a well in Florida you don’t assume it is the opening of a hole that extends to connect to another opening in Australia.

    • Spzi@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Not a native speaker, but doesn’t “hole” refer to an opening? The structure which connects two openings, but is itself not connected to the outside would be called cave, or tunnel.

      • Syrup@lemmy.cafe
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        1 year ago

        It usually does, however, there are cases where a hole can have two openings. For example, there’s a saying/idiom about digging a hole through the earth and ending up in china/australia/etc. It would be confusing to say that you “dug two holes” to China, you would only say that you “dug a hole” to China. “Tunnel” is definitely more precise here, though it would be odd to refer to the openings in a drinking straw as a “tunnel”