Twitter 'worse at counting than hyenas'

On twitter.com a tweet will have listed under it a statement like: "Retweeted by Jim and n others".
I've noticed for a while now that the value of n seems incorrect. Idly, I asked on Twitter if people have noticed this.

@IgorCarron said that "Jim plus n others" means there should be n+1 people in total. This is what I would expect, given my fragile grasp of the English language, but I suspect this is not what is happening. I think n is actually the number of retweeters including Jim, not excluding him as the wording would suggest. Then the correct form should be "Retweeted by Jim and (n-1) others" or "Retweeted by n people including Jim". 

My cynical brain says people would object to and complain about a lower number being displayed so Twitter would put the higher number, but then why not use the "n including" language, which has the virtue of being correct?

@christianp has seen "and others" when only one person has retweeted a message! @AlexHymers reported having seen inconsistencies when only two people have retweeted a message. If the problem is at the n=1 end of the scale only, that is interesting. If this were a poorly coded student project I might suggest the error is in the part of the code that decides whether to pluralise the "other(s)". (Of course, this is a major international company and not some poorly tested bit of code...)

With an sensible practical mindset, @relinde suggested an experiment: "Ask two people to retweet your message, and see if it says 'by Jim & 1 other' or 'by Jim & 2 others'. I think the first."

I sent a message (Tweet 1) to @relinde and @christianp asking them to ReTweet (RT) my message. @christianp did so. Impatient, I tweeted out generally for one person to RT the message (Tweet 2) giving a link to Tweet 1. @AlexHymers retweeted Tweet 1. Then @relinde did as well. My impatience had got me three RTs. The result? Tweet 1 was "Retweeted by relinde and 3 others". The wording suggests four, when only three had retweeted it.

However, at the same time two users, @OnThisDayinMath and @englishblonde had, misunderstanding the instruction, retweeted Tweet 2. This now displayed "Retweeted by englishblonde and 1 other". The wording here was correct: 2 retweets.

 
Remembering hyenas and monkeys can count to 3, is it the case that Twitter can count reliably only as far as 2?

One final note: @timtfj says "n in 'retweeted by A and n others' seems to vary between meaning n and n-1, but always to be an integer". Does anyone have a counterexample?

Nottingham Maths Jam on BBC Radio Nottingham

At the August Maths Jam, we in Nottingham were joined by a reporter from BBC Radio Nottingham's breakfast show, who wanted to know what we were all about. A feature was broadcast last Friday. You can listen to this for a very limited time at: Andy Whittaker, Friday 2nd September. The Maths Jam section starts at 1 hour 56 minutes and lasts for about 3 minutes.

A brisk trade in souvenir mugs

Readers of this blog may be aware that my local maths history comes much in the form of George Green, a local miller and mathematician (indeed it is a George Green mug I am drinking from in the Math/Maths Podcast album art). I noticed the following passage in the introduction to the Proceedings of the 1990 Undergraduate Mathematics Teaching Conference written by Ken Houston:

George Green (1793-1841) who discovered "Green's Theorem" was a miller in the village of Sneinton (now part of the City of Nottingham). Recently the windmill has been restored to working order and a visitor's centre has been built beside it. Our conference trip was a visit to Green's windmill and the mill centre. After our tour of the windmill and the centre there was a brisk trade in souvenir mugs and no doubt many undergraduate students of vector analysis will hear about Green's mill next session.