In Walsh’s Mercantile Arithmetic, published in 1807, there is an example that certainly would not have pleased Neal Dow. This is the problem:
If 8 boarders drink a barrel of cider in 12 days, how long would it last if 4 more came among them?
I quote another problem that must surely have sent the distracted teacher to her dictionary for first aid to the tormented:
How much will 189 bazar maunds (a maund = 82.14 lbs.) 31 seer (a seer = 2.06 lbs.) 8 chattacks (a chattack = 1/16 of a seer, or 2 oz.) of sugar come to, at 6 rupees per maund?
One arithmetic maker, Jacob Willetts, of Poughkeepsie, set many of his problems in rhyme; for instance,
When first the marriage knot was ty’d
Between my wife and me,
My age was to that of my bride,
As three times three to three.