Loosely based on the game show Let’s Make a Deal, hosted by Monty Hall, what’s known as the Monty Hall problem is a simply constructed puzzle. Imagine in a game show contestants saw 3 doors, and behind one of which is a prize, and behind the other two doors, goats. The contestant chooses a door, but instead of opening it, Monty opens one of the remaining doors that reveals a goat. He gives you a choice: Do you want to change your door or stick with the one you picked? The problem is: which is the better choice?

If you’re interested it’s pretty easy to find out the real answer. Confirming to yourself why is another thing.

The Monty Hall problem

— and much nicer than using parentheses (). And —to go the full mile —why not use an en dash when you’re separating your page numbers 1–5 or months May–Sep next time?

Most writing tools and OSes have tricks to do these automatically for you.

Know your dashes: the hyphen, en dash and em dash

What's the difference between an americano and a long black coffee? I'd often wondered. Both seemed to be espresso and water.

Not everyone will give you the same answer in a coffee shop if you ask them. But my understanding is the difference between an americano and a long black comes down to the order of adding your water to your espresso — an americano — or adding your espresso to your water — a long black one.

If you’re making your own americanos or long black at home, you may notice that a long black seems to make a more satisfyingly luxurious-looking coffee as it does a better job of preserving the crema on top.

Espresso, filter, americano and the redeye.

Perhaps I should speak to someone about this.

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An americano and a long black: the difference