There is a song by Alanis Morrisette called "Jekyll and Hyde." I am not really sure what it is about, but I was listening to it when I read the math illiteracy blog. There is a line that says "The standards have gone down." I think it is talking about lovers in the song, but to me it means that the reason we are math illiterate is because people don't have the same expectations as they used to. We can slack more today then mathematicians in the olden days did.
What people think of as "normal" has changed like hair styles and clothes do through out time. The "norm" today is to be lazy overweight people because "exercise takes up too much energy." The people that love to workout are shunned because their tastes are different from others around them.
We are math illiterate simply because we are lazy. The 3 quarters in a basketball game sounds "cooler" than three thirds of a game or four quarters of a game. I bet in the olden days when freezing water was discovered to be used to cool drinks, where the water was frozen was a cube like shape and the name just stuck. To give 120% is to give it all you've got and more. To try your hardest at everything you do. That is how to live life: at it's fullest.
(BTW the house numbering problem is also a problem to NM, WA, NY, and CO. How do I know? I have visited all these places and it is a recurring theme. I don't know why.)
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