Re: Lens history question?

In article <AMZQf.5577$a57.126274@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Alan Browne <alan.browne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
David Littlewood wrote:

<alan.browne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes

In the Merriam-Webster dictionary (but not in Collins), it is an accepted variant. I find it archaic in form but not objectionable.
It is completely unknown in UK English dictionaries. There are good etymological reasons for the spelling. Even in the USA it is a minor aberrant form. I causes pain to my (and Skip's) teeth. I conclude it's best avoided in polite society.

"I causes pain to my..."

Hmm. I'll _assume_ that's a 'missing t' typo and avoid correcting you!
;-)

Ho hum! Got me...

I have no idea where "lense" comes from and I had assumed it was British as some Brit words have "e" on the end for no useful purpose (my name included).

From Latin: lens, lentis - a pulse or bean IIRC. The shape of biconvex lenses supposedly resembles them.

Consider that Brits and Canadians wtite "Cheque" (following the French) and Americans "Check".
We all know you guys can't spell for toffee. And don't get me on to US style date layouts.....

Ahem. I spell it "cheque" and I live north of the US.

Yes, sorry, I forgot where you lived for the moment!

The ONLY date layout that is acceptable to me is neither US nor Brit, but ISO 8601. (At that I prefer the "." notation to the the "-" notation).

YYYY.MM.DD
(Elaborated further at: http://www.w3.org/TR/NOTE-datetime )

Yep; the British format is slightly more logical; the only truly logical one is as you say. I use it for naming computer files and image names to make them come out in order. In normal correspondence I use the UK format, partly to annoy my US colleagues.

A story sometime ago about a girl receiving 15% on a math test because the teacher would not accept her French styled "7" (7 with a horizontal bar in the middle of the stem) really got me; she otherwise would have had a top 90's score. The teacher claimed she had no idea what the character meant. Yeah right. With teachers like that...
Clearly absurd. BTW, I always cross my 7s too (and Zs, to distinguish them from 2s). She certainly wouldn't get to mark for my wife (see below).

American school (above) you see... I sometimes cross my 7's and used to cross my Z's and 0's when we programmed (Assembler/Fortran/Data) by *** entry for the data entry clerks... Once we all terminals and coded on the fly, then the discipline waned.

What's the point? Math or style? Spelling or meaning?

My son recently lost 15 points on a math exam when he didn't put "f(x)=" in front of the solutions. (eg: okay to leave it off while evolving the soluition but not the QED). I sided with the teacher on that; but little things like spelling (where grammar or meaning are not affected) are not relavant to the goal of the class.
^^^^^^^^^^
Quite funny in context.

As you see it. I had some teachers in high school and college who would mark every little error, but only grade on the subject matter of the test. If it was a spelling test (none really after 7th or 8th grade) then fair game, but after that the more important goals of grammar or communication were what were scored. You could, if you were a poor speller, get back a *** riddled with red corrections but still get a good score if you were fulfilling the primary requirement of the test.

Seems fair. My wife's pupils often comment when she does similar things: "you're supposed to be a maths teacher, how come you know how to spell?".

I remember losing a lot of points on a French paper (that I struggled with being English in my third year of French HS) because of formatting errors, not becasue of narrative, grammar or spelling (the point of the exercise).

I worked my ass off for correct spelling and grammar, but because the title, my name and the date were not at the "correct" positions, the teacher took off 40%! He got mad at my protests so I grabbed the paper from his desk and went to the vice principal, with ole' anal-retentive trying to grab the paper back from me. After a heated argument in the principals office I was only penalized for "French" errors, not for pissant formatting irregularities. You have to fight for reasonablenes. The next year I was promoted to the "enriched" French level from the "struggling" level that Mr. anal-retentive taught. I assume he was not judged competent for "normal" or "enriched" French and I daresay that he prevented a lot of otherwise capable people from achieving higher level French in the following year.

Clearly the chief examiner is a pedant. My wife (whose pedigree in these matters is impeccable - Head of Maths, A-level Chief Examiner, writer of books etc) has explained to me the importance of distinguishing between a function and a mere expression, but says that a penalty of one mark would be appropriate in most cases.

I would agree with that. My son is quite the mathematician (has clear logic, math and abstraction skills and a fine math intuition), but he is also sloppy in execution... this costs him on his score ***. It is more and more important now as U. is coming and while 90's might be fine, there are a lot of kids applying to the same U's who are getting 90's too.

My wife and I often debate educational matters such as this. I point out to her that in the real world of employment one is expected to be mathematically and linguistically competent (assuming the job requires it) and being good at one is often not a sufficient compensation for making no effort at the other. To be fair, she mostly agrees. Many people do not understand that weak communication skills kill as many ideas in business as poor conception. Maybe it shouldn't be so, but it is.

Good debate, Alan; I am away for a few days, so please don't think me rude if I don't respond further..

David
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David Littlewood
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