Counting to Five

[1] A: "Can you count to five?" B: "Sure. One, two, three, four, five." A: "Ah, amateur stuff. Me, I do it 'four, five.' Much faster."

[2] B: "But that's not how you count." A: "And you're such an expert? You barely got to five at the very end, and took such a roundabout path I doubted you'd make it at all."

[3] B: "You can't just start wherever you like! You have to begin at one." A: "Tell me: when you're climbing to a mountaintop, do you start by going to the harbor?"

[4] B: "Well, no, but…" A: "So when I tell you to count to five, why start way down at one? What a sorry lack of foresight!"

[5] B: "Well, then you might as well just start at five and say 'five,' right?" A: "Don't be silly! That isn't counting, it's just saying a number."

[6] B: "Well, how would you count to 100?" A: "Easily. 96, 97, 99, 100." B: "But you skipped 98!" A: "Well, you never said anything about 98."

[7] A: "Should I go through 103 and 714 and 56 as well, on the off-chance you had your heart set on some number you never even mentioned?"

[8] B: "Listen! To count, you start at one, and go through all the others, until you arrive at the right one!" A: "All the numbers? ½, 7/8, π?"

[9] B: "You know what I mean! Just the whole numbers." A: "Fine. But in what order?" B: "Numerical order, of course." A: "Listen to yourself! 'Numerical order.' They're numbers! Every order is numerical!"

[10] B: "No! One, two, three. That's numerical order." A: "Two, one, three. So is that." B: "No." A: "Three, one, seven, two, three." B: "Stop it!"

[11] B: "Those aren't numerical order!" A: "So what are they? Animal order? Vegetable order? Mineral order? You can tell a number from a mineral, can't you?"

[12] B: "I used to think so." A: "Hey, don't get down. You're learning already. A few minutes ago you could barely count to five!"