31 Oct
2003
31 Oct
'03
4:55 p.m.
Mike Speciner writes: << ... If you're going to invent new words (and I'm pretty sure I'd rather stick with "nonnegative") they really ought to be clearly better than the alternative. I understand the awkwardness of phrases like "greater than or equal to", but it's only a problem when speaking. Otherwise, I can write ">=", or, in my favorite programming language, "ge".
But "only a problem when speaking" can be significant if one likes to talk about math, such as when collaborating or teaching. I hope that simple concepts like nonnegative can be expressed with fewer syllables in the future. Maybe using just "nonneg" and "nonpos" will catch on. --Dan