Timeline for How to refer to plural of mathematical symbols - with or without an apostrophe [closed]
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 5, 2015 at 17:25 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Jan 5, 2015 at 18:38 | |||||
| Jan 5, 2015 at 17:08 | comment | added | KConrad | @DelioMugnolo: I wrote about apostrophes following single letters, not abbreviations. I agree with you about PDEs, ODEs, UFDs, and so on. | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 13:20 | history | closed |
Andrés E. Caicedo Yemon Choi Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine Gerald Edgar Chris Godsil |
Opinion-based | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 12:13 | comment | added | Asaf Karagila♦ | To all you native English speakers that might shake their head in disagreement with both choices, just remember that the official language of science is Broken English. :-) | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 12:11 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by Todd Trimble | ||
| Jan 5, 2015 at 11:57 | comment | added | Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine | @YemonChoi: very good point; and the answers/discussion so far bear it out. You’ve converted me to the close-vote camp, though as “primarily opinion-based” rather than “off-topic”. | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 11:54 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | @PeterLeFanuLumsdaine My experience editing mathematical writing, having my writing edited, disagreeing with the copy-editors of AMS and OUP on whether "Helson set" and "Hochschild cohomology" require the definite article, and reading Fowler, make me fear this is a topic where discussion here will just devolve into anecdotes and selective quoting of conflicting grammar guides | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 11:51 | comment | added | Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine | @YemonChoi: for PDE’s vs. PDEs, it’s certainly a general English usage question — and indeed it’s already asked and well-answered on english.stackexchange. But for $x_i$ vs. $x_i$s vs. $x_i$’s, the usage and conventions are pretty specific to mathematical writing, so it seems reasonably on-topic here to me. | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 11:32 | comment | added | Yemon Choi | This question belongs on an English languae forum or on academia.SE | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 11:29 | comment | added | Joonas Ilmavirta | @DelioMugnolo, "PDE" is an abbreviation, not a symbol. It might make a difference. Anyway, I agree that putting the apostrophe everywhere is not a good idea. | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 11:24 | comment | added | Delio Mugnolo | @KConrad I would say, this use is wrong. PDE's is wrong, PDEs is correct, simply put. | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 11:18 | answer | added | bandrade | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 10:18 | history | edited | Joonas Ilmavirta | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 5 characters in body; edited tags; edited title
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| Jan 5, 2015 at 9:55 | answer | added | Joonas Ilmavirta | timeline score: 27 | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 9:35 | comment | added | KConrad | If you want to use such a format, include the apostrophe. The other way looks weird. Other situations outside of math: "his grades are all A's" (versus "his grades are all As"), "dots your i's" (versus "dot your is"), or "mind your p's and q's" (versus "mind your ps and qs"). From the viewpoint of clarity I think apostrophes belong there. This use of the apostrophe after single letters or numbers to indicate plural is not the standard grammatical function of an apostrophe, but c'est la vie. | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 8:34 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jan 5, 2015 at 13:20 | |||||
| Jan 5, 2015 at 8:25 | answer | added | Myshkin | timeline score: 13 | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 8:16 | comment | added | Brendan McKay | Both are terrible. | |
| Jan 5, 2015 at 8:12 | history | asked | warsaga | CC BY-SA 3.0 |