Elaphants in Denmark

[LeedsRhinos]

I used to now a trick where you would ask someone to pick a number & then add a number divide by this subtract that & then ask them to pick a letter that corressponded with that number ie a=1 b=2 c=3 d=4 etc. They would always end with 4. then they were asked to think of a country begining with that letter & nearly everyone picked Denmark. I think thay were then asked to think think of an animal that began with the 2nd letter of the country, they always pick elephant. you then say there are no elephants in denmark & which point they are amazed. Trouble is i've forgotton how to end up with the number 4. Can anyone remember how to do this.

[Dazzler]

Any kind of fudge can be worked out to do this, e.g. think of a number, multiply it by 3, add 18, divide the result by 3, take away 6, take away the number you first thought of, add 4, and then think of a country with the letter corresponding to that number... By making the procedure longer you can stop all but the most talented of mental mathematicians from realising easily that it's a con. Hope this helps. I was subjected to this once a while ago, but I chose "Deutschland" since the questionner didn't specify a language. Have fun

[bernardo]

The version of this I heard was that you had to choose a country beginning with D, get the second letter, choose an animal beginning with the second letter, and the other person "revealed" that the animal was grey. When I was asked, I thought of Djibouti and Jackal, but I wasn't sure if a jackal was grey or brown.