That’s odd
October 31, 2007 pm31 11:53 pm
“All prime numbers are odd…”
“No, Mr. 2718…”
“No..?”
“No. Two is even, and it’s prime.”
“Are there any other even primes?”
“No. Two is the only one.”
“That’s odd!”
Thanks to J. Matthews, who told it to me, and to the thousands of teachers across this land who’ve kept this one alive, and to the hundreds of thousands of students who have groaned just painfully enough to encourage us to keep telling this one.
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JD2718 
this is great. i was just doing primes with my elementary teachers. i’m totally telling the joke. today, right before the exam. and there is a problem on it that says “for any two odd primes…” i wonder if that’ll make them laugh.
and lest we forget:
all odd numbers are prime.
An early edition of Marshall Hall’s book on Groups has:
“Let p be any old prime…”
Nice language feature