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Dictionaries and technical terminology

April 27 2005 at 12:30 PM
  (Login Wisdom7491)


Response to No

 
I should think you would have recognized that my use of "denumerable" was at least semi-technical. Before suspecting that I'm using a logico-mathematical term incorrectly, and before going through very many dictionaries, you'd save yourself a lot of time and effort by just asking me what the term meant.

I never once used "denumerable" and "infinite" as if they were synonymous. If you somehow got it into your head that they were synonymous, then I'm not at all surprised that you thought that I was misusing "denumerable".

There's nothing preposterous, in itself, for someone unfamiliar with a word to look it up in one or more dictionaries. But if doing so leads you to suspect that an expert is using the word incorrectly, the thing to do is put your dictionaries away and seek professional help.

You say that my usage "does not conform to what appears to be the more commonplace understanding of the word". Well, how about that! Of course it doesn't. As for your suggestion that I might use "infinitely many" instead of "denumerably many", I couldn't do that because I didn't mean "infinitely many": I meant exactly "denumerably many". Perhaps laypeople don't understand what "denumerable" means; but they don't understand what "infinite" means either. (As I've said in a number of posts here, not all infinite sets are denumerable--i.e., equinumerous with the set {1,2,3,4,...}. Hence the terms can't be synonymous.) So I might as well use the right word rather than the wrong word, and run the risk of foolishly being suspected of using the word incorrectly.

 
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  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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