(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Quoth silmaril:

Arrrrrgh. Aaaargh. Argh.

(They. Even. Linked. The. Concept. To. Temperatures. And. Still. "I'm not having it." ARRRRGH!!!)

Comments

[post-ecdysis.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my first thought was that it was a British-ism, but the journalist correctly calls them "negative numbers". A quick check of Wiki and Google Fight (http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=negative+numbers&word2=minus+numbers) convinces me that it is a global barbarism.

(Alas, yes, Mirriam-Webster's Tenth does have an entry for "minus" as an adjective as well as a preposition, and not just in the acceptable phrase "B-minus". The fact that someone got it wrong in 1800 does not make it correct or even acceptable in modern language, and this point should be understood by a fellow mathematician better than anyone.)

The vorkers kontrol the means ov produktion

[frith]

Just to be facetious, isn't English, from the very get go, a barbaric language, left to it's devices while the British élite conversed in Latin and French? Sure, dictionaries and grammar rules have been trying desperatly to gentrify the beast for centuries, painting the whore in Latin spellings and pseudo-Latin pronounciation, but, I mean really -- sewer water is still sewer water even if you send it once or twice through an autoclave. So, what I mean to say, if the vox populi wish to basterdize a term here and there in what is already a living illegitimate language, who are we to stifle it?

Re: The vorkers kontrol the means ov produktion

[post-ecdysis.livejournal.com]

To answer facetiously, we are mathematicians. Mathematical language (http://thinkexist.com/quotation/mathematicians_are_like_frenchmen-whatever_you/179777.html) works hard for a more precise language so that we may more effectively communicate fundamental truths. It is the same in all technical fields: to you and me, "disease", "disorder", and "syndrome" all mean the same thing, but they would not be synonymous in the context of a medical journal. A properly trained mathematician is the same, except unable to turn it of at the end of the day.

To blow the point out of proportion, teachers with the freedom to assert that "minus" is an adjective will train students who will feel free to assert that the real numbers are ordered by magnitude.

The point is taken, the beast is molting, the fluff gets up your nose

[frith]

I grant you the technicality, if only because I sympathize with your examples. *g* At work, I wonder how many synapses I fried, how many neurons I eviscerated as I wrapped their heads around the concept that precision is independent of accuracy, and thus some of our precious thermometers might be completely unreliable despite their high precision.