There Are <i>More</i> Than 9 Wrong Ways to Swipe a MetroCard

Subway ad image via Young Manhattanite; diagram from reader.

Have you seen those Jameson ads on the subway? Have they been making you feel like you've had one too many? Seems the inaccurate wording has some straphangers puzzled, specifically the part that reads: "there are 9 wrong ways to swipe your subway card." Let's ignore the fact that no one calls a MetroCard a subway card, and take a look at what one reader had to say:

It's been bothering me for weeks; the Jameson ads that claim that there are nine wrong ways to swipe a Metrocard. False...there will never be exactly 9 ways to swipe a MetroCard.

The reader also sent along a diagram, which found 15 ways to wrongly swipe a MetroCard (see the "math" after the jump), and asked if we could "publicly humiliate whoever is responsible for such foolishness." Seems some have been trying to do just that since March, but the wrongly worded ads are still running. What gives Jameson? Next you'll tell commuters they've only got 25 ways to leave their lovers?

So, one way of looking at the "wrong" way to swipe is the direction of your swiping. In that case, the wrong is depicted in swipe B. (Total of wrong swipes: 1)

Another, is looking at the way you're holding your metrocard. This is shown in C, E and G. (Total of wrong swipes: 3)

Another, is to say that you can hold the card the wrong way and swipe in the wrong direction. Then you've got B, C, D, E, F, G, H (Total of wrong swipes: 7)

Then throw in being a total moron and holding it vertically. Just holding it wrong gives you C, E, G, I, J, K, L (Total of wrong swipes). Holding it wrong and swiping the wrong direction gives you B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P (where MNOP are the wrong-direction vertical metrocards I didn't feel like drawing) That gives you a total number of wrong swipes to be 15.

But there is no combination of wrong swipes according to consistent rules of what is a "possible swipe" that would EVER equal nine.