While franticly rummaging through things on my desk in search of a good piece of scrap paper, I came across this nigh forgotten morsel of analytic genius:
Obviously inspired by the musical claim, for which Mr. Billy Joel is first credited, that “Only the Good Die Young,” this Venn diagram offers an alternative hypothesis. As clearly labeled, the uppermost two spheres represent populations labeled “Good” and “Die Young.” The third sphere, not labeled, illustrates that other populations with no overlap into the “Good” sphere may still share potential membership in the “Die Young” population. By careful examination, then, we see that while some good people may die young, and some people that die young are, in fact, good, it is not only the good that possess the potential for premature mortality. QED, Mr. Joel.
It is worth noting, however, that our esteemed colleague’s lyrics are not wholly without merit. The other contention of import to be found in the same song, that “Catholic girls start much too late,” has been peer-reviewed and illustrated to be demonstrably correct.
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