23 Dec
2021
23 Dec
'21
5:47 p.m.
On 12/23/21 4:35 PM, Larry McVoy wrote:
On Thu, Dec 23, 2021 at 04:28:26PM +0000, Dr Iain
Maoileoin wrote:
I totally agree. My question is about language use (or drift) - nothing
else. In Scotland - amongst the young - "Arithmetic" is now referred
to as "Maths". I am aware of the transition but cant understand what
caused it to happen! I dont know if other countries had/have the same
slide from a specific to a general - hence the questions - nothing deeper.
In lower secondary school we would go to both Arithmetic AND also to
Maths classes. I suspect that no longer happens in the schools. I
guess I will need to go speak to some teachers.
I am not nit-picking, this is just the first time I have picked up the
use of maths in the context amongst eh how do I phrase it "the older
generation" oops....
On 12/23/21 4:00 PM, Larry McVoy wrote:
It's always been that way, arithmetic is a mouthful so people use math
to mean arithmetic. You are correct, arithmetic is a distinct subset
of math. But it's pedantic to call that out, math is a superset of
arithmetic so it is perfectly reasonable to call doing some arithmetic
"math". If we started nit picking about those types of differences,
we'd never get anything meaningful done. On Thu, Dec 23, 2021 at 03:29:18PM +0000, Dr Iain
Maoileoin wrote:
Interesting - have you
always done that??? Or is it a more recent use of the
word? > Probably boomer doing math wrong.
I might get flamed for this comment, but is a number divided by a number not
arithmetic.?? I cant see any maths in there.
That's just a language thing,
lots of people in the US call arithmetic
math. I'm 100% positive that that is not just me.