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- Subject: Re: Trivial typo in 5.4.0 manual
- From: Pierpaolo Bernardi <olopierpa@...>
- Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 00:27:12 +0200
On Sun, Sep 23, 2018 at 1:20 AM Tim Hill <drtimhill@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> It’s very trivial, but I just noticed this is section 8.1 of the 5.4.0 work2 reference manual:
>
> "the new implementation preserves the implicit type of the numeral in the string”
>
> This should probably be “number” .. “numeral” refers to a single digit (e.g. “seven” or ‘7” or “Roman numeral"), not an entire number.
A number is an abstract mathematical concept.
A numeral is a representation of a number in some agreed upon
representation system (Roman, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Goedel, ...)
In non-technical speech, people often say "number" when they actually
mean "numeral". This use is informal, and out of place in a technical
spec.
