Caleb and Noah's Rules of Counting

I have recently discovered that most of us have been mistaken when counting; however, by observing my very smart and open-minded 3-year-olds, I learned a few simple rules by which we can correctly number the items in the world around us.

1. There are ALWAYS 10 steps in any staircase. If you end up with a different number, you made a mistake. Sometimes this means that quite a few steps are the ninth step. Other times, steps 5 through 9 are missing.


2. The numbers 15 through 19 are optional. They can be used if desired, but skipping them still yields the correct result when counting. If you realized that means any number of items greater 14 has two correct counts, you have been enlightened. Since steps always come in sets of 10, large staircases never have two possible results. Never.


3. This rule should actually be number 1, not 3. That is, in small lists, the numbers 1 an 2 should be repeated, and then be followed by 3, if necessary. The result is therefore 1, 2, 1, 2, 3. Some collections that initially seem to have more items would be counted 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3. Obviously both collections have 3 items.


4. The numbers 11 - 14 are very important. Continuing counting, even when the number of items doesn't reach these, is very desirable.

Hopefully, if you hadn't already learned these 2 rules, from now on, you'll do better at counting.