“Does a straw have one hole or two?”
One. A straw is topologically a single tube — one continuous hole running end to end, same as a donut. The two openings are just the two ends of the same hole, not two separate holes.
Two. There's a hole at the top and a hole at the bottom — you can literally point to each one. "Topology" is a party trick; in plain English, if you can poke your finger into two spots, that's two holes.
The Rhetorician: “The argument for a single hole rests on a rigorous topological standard that treats the straw as one uninterrupted void, whereas the opposing view merely cites intuitive pointing without offering a coherent definition of what constitutes separate holes. Precision outranks common speech when common speech is ambiguous.”
Got an argument that won't die? Settle it the same way.
Settle your own