@Background Pony #8B56  
I don’t think anybody’s being attacked. It’s a joke.
 
That said, I don’t find it funny, but that’s just cause it’s contrived.
 
I still liked this comic a lot overall though.

I remember this page being an example of why I ended up disliking Lovestruck Derpy, because of how frequently the asker of a question would be attacked over a misunderstanding. Not only was the question being misread, but there’s no indication the question was even intended for Derpy in the first place as it’s not addressed to a specific character, and certainly no reason to assume that this was the intended reaction even if it was.

@Yoshimon1  
Hmm… Fair enough, I can see how that is definitely confusing. The pausing bit… I still feel like you would just write parentheses or sets of commas if you wanted any, but it does lend itself to confusion in this regard, when compared with neat and tidy numbers and symbols.

@O. Hancock  
If they had written it as numbers and operators, then sure, order of operations, because you can see the presence or absence of parentheses and fractions. But when talking/reading the equation out loud, everything changes based on how you stress certain parts or make small pauses.  
I’ve been working with lots of fractions lately, so when I first read it, I read it as “c plus three (pause) divided by…”, numerator divided by denominator, my d). Only when reading it again, I read “c (pause) plus three divided by…”, my a). I have no idea what they actually meant.
 

 
That’s just a single number and not an equation, there is no ambiguous order here.

@Yoshimon1  
Why would standard order of operations suddenly not apply, solely because it’s written out in English? When I go to the bank they have no problem cashing a check made out for “Seventy-five and 00/100 dollars.” While anecdotal and no actual math is involved there, I feel like it’s an applicable example of numbers still generally being understandable by the public when written out.
 
Furthermore, If the asker wanted parentheses when asking the question, would they have not most likely stated something about their desired order of operations?

The value is 3.88. I used to love this blog back in the day, and I do enjoy seeing a new post, but they misread “negative five squared” as “the square root of negative five.” My findings were concurrent with fellow user @Exhumed Legume.

Wait a minute, why is nerdy town down in the comments?… How am i kidding, i tried to solve it too :v

Trick question. It’s the speed of light. :P

I, for one, find math a lot of fun. I’m sure, if Doctor Whooves had read the question, he would’ve realized that Derpy was trying to get the square root of the wrong number. Exhumed Legume has the right answer.

This is dumb. The way this is phrased, it could be many different equations. All can be solved, though.
 
“absolute value of negative eight divided by the square root of four” could either be  
abs((-8) / sqrt(4)) or  
abs(-8) / sqrt(4).  
In both cases, it ends up as just 8 / 2 = 4.
 
So: 4 = X, where X is…
 
X = “c plus three divided by negative five squared” could be:  
a) c + (3 / ((-5)²))  
b) c + (3 / -(5²))  
c) c + (3 / -5)²  
d) (c + 3) / (-5)²  
e) (c + 3) / -(5²)  
f) (c + (3 / -5))²  
g) ((c + 3) / -5)²
 
a) - e) are linear and contain only c, f) and g) are quadratic and contain c².
 
When finally solving for c:  
a) c = 97/25  
b) c = 103/25  
c) c = 91/25  
d) c = 97  
e) c = -103  
and the quadratic equations with two solutions  
f) c1 = -7/5 and c2 = 13/5  
g) c1 = -13 and c2 = 7
 
TL;DR Don’t spell out equations as words!
 
Shoutouts to Wolfram|Alpha!

Uhh, “squared” is not the same as “square root of.”
 
“Negative five squared” = (-5)² = 5² = 25.
 
8/√4 = 8/2 = 4
 
4 = c + 3/(-5)² = c +3/25
 
c = 4 - 3/25 = 3.88