Is it math or maths?

What did you say? And what did you mean by it?

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Terrapin Station
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:
vegetariantaxidermy wrote: If the English say mathS then it's mathS. Every other ENGLISH-speaking country says mathS. Of course, the yanks have to be different because they are a bunch of illiterate oafs who are intent on dragging the rest of the world down with them.
That sounds like an argumentum ad populum. Argumentum ad populums are fallacious. (Not to mention that it's simply "rah rah conformism" and who the frig wants to be all pro-conformism like that?)
No it is an argument of precedent.
Precedent doesn't make anything right. That's a purism fallacy. And it's also again arguing for conforming.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Terrapin Station wrote:
vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:That sounds like an argumentum ad populum. Argumentum ad populums are fallacious. (Not to mention that it's simply "rah rah conformism" and who the frig wants to be all pro-conformism like that?)
Pompous ass.
It's pompous to point out fallacious reasoning on a philosophy board?
See how stupid yanklish is? Yanks would assume I am using yanklish spelling for 'arse', when what I am really say is 'ass'.
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vegetariantaxidermy
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Terrapin Station wrote: Precedent doesn't make anything right. That's a purism fallacy. And it's also again arguing for conforming.
Do you have a book you refer to called 'how to present an argument using annoying and pretentious philolophical terms'? You should try just thinking for yourself.
Last edited by vegetariantaxidermy on Mon Sep 26, 2016 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Is it math or maths?

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Terrapin Station wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:It is exactly the sort of thing that is right or wrong.
All values judgements are ultimately subjective. Since I, a subject, reacts to "math" in a negative way that makes it wrong, by the only category that matters - how one feels about it.
What makes something right or wrong is that it matches a fact about what the world is either mind-independently like, or mind-dependently like when it's a proposition that's about what the minds in question are like.

(I know that's a bit more complicated than just saying "What makes something right or wrong is that it matches a fact about what the world is mind-independently like," but it's better to be accurate in this case, I think, than simple just for ease of reading comprehenion's sake.)
Words, maths and such things are not "in the world" and so do not submit to material factuality.
Such things are concepts and all reside in the mind. Truth also as a concept can only exist in the mind; the truth is not ;"out there" as I say in another thread.
If some person decides to pronounce maths Blognog, then I declare that to be wrong. If a 250 million decide to use Blognog then that might be right for them, it is still wrong for me.
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Re: Is it math or maths?

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vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:
No it is an argument of precedent.
Precedent doesn't make anything right. That's a purism fallacy. And it's also again arguing for conforming.
Do you have a book you refer to called 'how to present an argument using annoying and pretentious philolophical terms'? You should try just thinking for yourself.
Is there academic philosophy you regularly read that you don't consider annoying and pretentious? Just curious what would be a couple examples of that for you.
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:That sounds like an argumentum ad populum. Argumentum ad populums are fallacious. (Not to mention that it's simply "rah rah conformism" and who the frig wants to be all pro-conformism like that?)
No it is an argument of precedent.
Precedent doesn't make anything right. That's a purism fallacy. And it's also again arguing for conforming.
It is the entire basis for all law. Not to be sniffed at.
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Words, maths and such things are not "in the world" and so do not submit to material factuality.
Such things are concepts and all reside in the mind. Truth also as a concept can only exist in the mind; the truth is not ;"out there" as I say in another thread.
Right, which means that grammar, spelling, conceptual cleavages, etc. are not correct or incorrect, just conventional or unconventional.

Truth is subjectively correct or incorrect. It's correct or incorrect in that it's about the relation of propositions to things-in-the-world.
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
No it is an argument of precedent.
Precedent doesn't make anything right. That's a purism fallacy. And it's also again arguing for conforming.
It is the entire basis for all law. Not to be sniffed at.
That doesn't help make it right.
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by vegetariantaxidermy »

Terrapin Station wrote:Is there academic philosophy you regularly read that you don't consider annoying and pretentious? Just curious what would be a couple examples of that for you.
'Academia' is full of highly-qualified idiots (Richard Dawkins said something like that), and philosophy academics are probably top of the list. There are a couple of professional philosophers I admire, but only because they aren't pretentious asses, and present arguments in a logical and unaffected way.
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:Words, maths and such things are not "in the world" and so do not submit to material factuality.
Such things are concepts and all reside in the mind. Truth also as a concept can only exist in the mind; the truth is not ;"out there" as I say in another thread.
Right, which means that grammar, spelling, conceptual cleavages, etc. are not correct or incorrect, just conventional or unconventional.

Truth is subjectively correct or incorrect. It's correct or incorrect in that it's about the relation of propositions to things-in-the-world.
Language is ever changing. But one has ones own standards, and we are able to express preference in the strongest possible terms we want. When i teach a child to abbreviate Maths I instruct the correct way is to use an 's'.
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:Precedent doesn't make anything right. That's a purism fallacy. And it's also again arguing for conforming.
It is the entire basis for all law. Not to be sniffed at.
That doesn't help make it right.
When a person is found guilty of murder the court applies the rules of precedent to make that finding, the convict and suggest punishment. This is called the right thing to do, being the right of the judge.
Are you saying that sending a man down for life is not right?
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Terrapin Station wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:Words, maths and such things are not "in the world" and so do not submit to material factuality.
Such things are concepts and all reside in the mind. Truth also as a concept can only exist in the mind; the truth is not ;"out there" as I say in another thread.
Right, which means that grammar, spelling, conceptual cleavages, etc. are not correct or incorrect, just conventional or unconventional.

Truth is subjectively correct or incorrect. It's correct or incorrect in that it's about the relation of propositions to things-in-the-world.
They are right or wrong as I see fit.
If you think I need to append "for me" every time I use the word right, then you can add it in your imagination, but it would be rather tedious to do so.
So its right (in the rest of the English speaking world) to say maths, but in America it is wrong. I would still exhort Americans to consider parity with 'stats' and suggest they use the more euphonic "maths".
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by Terrapin Station »

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:Is there academic philosophy you regularly read that you don't consider annoying and pretentious? Just curious what would be a couple examples of that for you.
'Academia' is full of highly-qualified idiots (Richard Dawkins said something like that), and philosophy academics are probably top of the list. There are a couple of professional philosophers I admire, but only because they aren't pretentious asses, and present arguments in a logical and unaffected way.
Right. So you mostly don't care for academic philosophy. Great forum to hang out in! :P

Who are the couple philosophers you like, by the way?
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
It is the entire basis for all law. Not to be sniffed at.
That doesn't help make it right.
When a person is found guilty of murder the court applies the rules of precedent to make that finding, the convict and suggest punishment. This is called the right thing to do, being the right of the judge.
Are you saying that sending a man down for life is not right?
It's not correct or incorrect. People simply have preferences about it. Preferences aren't correct or incorrect just because one feels them strongly, or just because a lot of people feel them, or just because people have felt them before.

You could be using "right" just in the sense of "I morally prefer this" though.
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Re: Is it math or maths?

Post by Noax »

Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Noax wrote:Being brought up with 'math' all my life, Hobbes explanation makes total sense. Yes, it is convention in the USA, but that does not make the convention correct. It is the sort of thing that is right or wrong. I will probably not change my spoken usage of the word, but I will on the forums, just like I usually switch to metric measurements for international conversations. Metric is not more correct, but it is far less stupid.
As I recall, Americans do not say "stat", but "stats" for statistics. I wonder what you say?
I say 'stats', since 'stat' means something like ASAP.
I was agreeing with you in that post, since you seem not to have caught on to that. But for the first reason posted, not the one you are pushing now:
Hobbes' Choice wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote:By virtue of what?
By virtue of the fact that "Math" is ugly.
You claim to find evolution of language to be acceptable, but only so long as it does not evolve separately from your correct version. Contractions were considered vulgar, but I do see you use them (incorrectly BTW) in your posts. So the ugly argument does not exactly fly.
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