As you may (or may not) recall, my last post focused on a mathematical puzzlement. At issue was the copyright restriction that quoted Bible verses may not comprise more than 25% of my total text. Having written what I wanted to write and counted both sets of words, I asked, how do I know how many Scripture words to delete?
Well, last night it came to me, and it’s so simple! I feel more than a bit foolish …
If I want to add narrative, to increase the total words, all I need to do is multiply the Scripture words by four and subtract the current total. The answer is how many words I must add to be legal. The formula, therefore, is 4(Scrip)-total = words to add.
If I want to delete some verses, again I multiply the current Scripture count by four and subtract the current total count. Then I divide that answer by three, and that’s how many words to delete! And the formula is (4Scrip-total)/3 = how many words to lose.
Sigh …