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No

April 25 2005 at 8:54 PM
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Response to Yes

 

It is not preposterous to check many dictionaries to see how a professional logician or a sailor or anyone else is using a particular word. That particular website does scan many on-line dictionaries but in fact found that word in only about a dozen.

The word "denumerable" was used in a way that hints at being synonomous with "infinite" but what is indeed preposterous about a layman looking up a new word in a dictionary? How else does one learn a new word, and in this case a word seemed, at least to me, to be misused?

I accept your usage of the word but it surely does not conform to what appears to be the more commonplace understanding of the word. Many words have multiple meanings, some quite arcane. What would have been wrong with just having used the term "infinitaly many" or some such phrase in that discussion when you were indeed talking to laymen, not professional logicians??

 
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  1. Dictionaries and technical terminology - Bill on Apr 27, 12:30 PM
    1. Re: Dictionaries and technical terminology - Ray haupt on Apr 27, 1:34 PM
      1. allow me to venture ... - Al on Apr 27, 2:40 PM
        1. A friend in need is a friend indeed! - Bill on Apr 27, 3:30 PM
      2. You still don't quite have it - Bill on Apr 27, 3:27 PM
        1. I am having trouble with this concept - Ray haupt on Apr 27, 4:24 PM
          1. The finite vs. the infinite - Bill on Apr 27, 5:33 PM
            1. question - Al on Apr 28, 12:57 PM
              1. Well, it won't be a technical sense. - Bill on Apr 28, 4:16 PM
                1. but, does it "mean sh*t to a tree"? - Al on Apr 28, 8:31 PM
                  1. Who's wasting whose time?? - Bill on Apr 29, 11:30 AM
                    1. elaboration - Al on Apr 29, 12:51 PM
                      1. I'm working on... - Bill on Apr 29, 3:31 PM
                        1. golden showers are officially outré - Al on Apr 29, 4:08 PM
                          1. Re: Golden Showers - Bill on Apr 30, 1:00 PM
                            1. with baited breath, barely contained ... - Al on Apr 30, 2:45 PM
                              1. The ground rules keep shifting - Bill on Apr 30, 5:24 PM
                                1. wow --- no they don't - Al on May 1, 10:51 AM
                                  1. OK... - Bill on May 1, 12:25 PM
     
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