In recent years, I found more instances of “its” being (wrongly?) substituted for “it’s” in otherwise grammatically correct sentences, making me wonder whether or not the two are now socially interchangeable. It’s is short for it is or it has. Its means belonging to it, as in “It’s hurt its foot while fleeing a prey.”
Chinglish Math
This reminds me of other oft-confused differences like “everyday and every day” and “that and which.”
The misuse of apostrophes isn’t limited to folks from non-English-speaking countries like China, South Korea, and Vietnam. Even in the “fine” city of Singapore, on social media, it’s not uncommon to witness (senior) math editors, (seasoned) teachers, and (savvy) politicians commit these grammatical faux pas.
Using the apostrophe correctly needn’t be difficult once you know the rule, albeit there are some tricky exceptions, which you may be forgiven if you do commit these grammar sins.
Test Yourself
Below is a simple but not simplistic exercise to test whether you’re (still) an “apostrophe novice” or not.
In each pair below, which is the correct one? A: You’re not wrong. B: You aren’t wrong.
C: two man’s hours D: two men’s hours
E: Who’s not coming? F: Who isn’t coming?
G: McDonald’s drinks H: McDonalds’ drinks
I: … it’s missing parts. J: … its missing parts.
K: My child scored four As for her PSLE exam. L: My child scored four A’s for her PSLE exam.
S: the player’s trophies during the 2000s T: the players’ trophies during the 2000’s
U: Jesus’ parables and miracles V: Jesus’s parables and miracles
W: Trump and Xi’s goals X: Trump’s and Xi’s goals
Y: I would’ve left him if not for his money. Z: I’d have left him if not for his money.
How many of these pairs have both options correct?
US Math MAGA-nizing Singapore?
Is Mathematics Plural or Singular?
Recently, while working on a mathproject, I was tickled when I came across something that reads like “Maths are like comic books. They help us deal with things in real life. …”
In French, it’s common usage to use les mathématiques—in plural form vis-à-vis the singular la mathématique. I thought it’s amusing that someone had creatively treated “maths” as plural. I was clueless if that’s because mathematic is singular and mathematics is plural.
Indeed, talking about the lighter side of math or math education, math writing (or editing) in the hands or mind of a nonmath writer (or editor) can be achingly funny. Any of those nontrivial blunders we occasionally (or frequently?) make often turns out to be little mathematical moments that spark joyin someone’s day.
Remembering Prof. Calculus’s Inventions & Innovations
Meet Professor Cuthbert Calculus, a polymath—a geeky jack of all trades—who was at home in many disciplines ranging from astronautics and astrophysics to geometry and geodetics to mathematics and thermodynamics.
The beloved clumsy and eccentric professor, or the absent-minded mad scientist par excellence, applied his mathematical and scientific knowledge to launch his futuristic inventions and innovations.
A Tribute to Calculus
To celebrate Professor Calculus, who first appeared 80 years ago in Hergé’s 12th Tintin book, Red Rackham’s Treasure (1943), the recently published Professor Calculus: Science’s Forgotten Genius (2023) by Albert Algoud—the original French edition first came out in 1994—paid a funny tribute to one of the most endearing scientific geniuses in children’s literature.
Over the course of 54 years, Hergé (Georges Remi) who’s born in Brussels in 1907, completed over 20 titles in The Adventures of Tintin series, which is now considered to be one of the greatest, if not the greatest, comics series of all time.
The Harry Potter Series of Yesteryear
More than 230 million copies of Tintin’s series have been sold, which proves that comic books have the same power to entertain children and adults in the 21st century as they did in the early 20th.
Tintin’s Series for Girls
Moons ago, when my daughters were in elementary or middle school, I introduced them to some Tintin’s titles. To my surprise, they’d quasi-zero interest in Tintin & Milou’s (or Snowy’s) stories, because they couldn’t relate to the male or chauvinistic, not to say, colonialist, characters.
Flipping through the pages, and taking a deeper look at Hergé’s characters, I realized that the girls weren’t wrong. The number of pages in each book depicting female characters is probably fewer than the fingers in a hand.
It’s no surprise that Hergé had been accused of sexism for the almost complete lack of female characters in his “boys books.” In fact, few people would disagree today that most (white) men from that era were racist, sexist, and misogynist.
Hergé himself denied being a misogynist, saying that “for me, women have nothing to do in a world like Tintin’s, which is the realm of male friendship.”
Tintin’s Gender
On a lighter note, Tintin himself has been labeled as being strongly feminized, especially in relation to Captain Haddock, with the hypothesis that he’s of virtually indeterminate gender.
More than half a dozen years ago, French philosopher Vincent Cespede made the headlines when he claimed that Tintin is “an androgynous redhead with blue eyes” and “presumably asexual.”
A Christmas Gift for Boys (and Girls?)
If you’ve a teenage son, grandson, or nephew, I think giving away a few Tintin’s titles would be an apt Christmas gift for them; however, for a daughter, granddaughter, or goddaughter, you’d probably want to think twice or thrice before prematurely exposing them to any of Hergé’s predominantly male white characters.
In today’s politicians’ slogan of inclusiveness or political correctness, I wonder whether The Adventures of Tintin series might even be banned in some feminist or woke circles. After all, if we recall that the Harry Potter series was not only banned from some school’s library after educators consulted with exorcists in the US and Rome, but also in some conservative Christian and radical Islamist circles.
The same could also be said for math classics like Edwin Abbott Abbott’s Flatland (1884), which directly or indirectly exposes social classes and white supremacy. Or titles like George Orwell’s 1984 that was banned in both Soviet Union and China.
The Calculus Affair
Tintin’s puzzle: How to rescue Prof. Calculus who’s in danger.
In The Calculus Affair, Tintin witnessed some very strange events like the simultaneous shattering of windows, mirrors, and chandeliers, leaving him bewildered. After a shooting and a break-in, Tintin knew Prof. Calculus was in danger, but he had only one clue—an unusual packet of cigarettes.
Could he solve the mystery before a terrible weapon fell into the wrong hands?Could he act in time to protect Professor Calculus?
Calculus’s brain. Fr: Albert Algoud’s Professor Calculus: Science’s Forgotten Genius (2023)
The Adventures of Tintin Series
If you’re a Tintin fan old and new, especially a lover of graphic novels, mysteries, and historical adventures, how many of the 20-odd titles of Hergé’s The Adventures of Tintin series have you read?
What’s your favorite Tintin’s title?
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets Aimed at communicating an anti-communist sentiment to the young reader? Banned in Ukraine?
Tintin in America Placed in a restricted access section of the Jones Library in Amherst, MA in 2014 for its “racist imagery.”
Cigars of the Pharaoh
The Blue Lotus Would Japanese nationalists call for its ban?
The Broken Ear
The Black Island
King Ottakar’s Sceptre
The Crab with the Golden Claws
The Shooting Star
The Secret of the Unicorn
Red Rackham’s Treasure First printed 80 years ago.
The Seven Crystal Balls
Prisoners of the Sun
Land of Black Gold
Destination Moon
Explorers of the Moon
The Calculus AffairA mathematician’s favorite?
The Red Sea Sharks
Tintin in TibetPraised by the Dalai Lama, who awarded it the Light of Truth Award. Banned in China?
The Castafiore Emerald
Flight 714 to Sydney
The Adventures of Tintin and the Picaros
Tintin and Alph-Art
Tintin in the CongoThe racist content: colonial attitude vis-à-vis Congolese people and for glorifying big-game hunting.
In my childhood days, I read most of Tintin’s titles in its original French, which is probably the language of choice to reading them, especially for those who’re bilingual, trilingual, or multilingual. I hope to reread the series in another language in my golden years.
A math definition that appeared to have been hijacked by Al-Qaeda or the Taliban
An unspoken commandment among parents and homeschoolers is: Thou shalt not introduce algebra to young kids without close adult supervision.
Looking at the unhealthy number of pre-school math titles in local bookstores, some Singapore math authors have set questions that directly or indirectly help promote algebraic thinking among toddlers and kindergarteners, particularly via the bar model method and number patterns, whether they’re pedagogically conscious of it or not.
Kiasu parents or tiger mums would buy assessment (or supplementary) math titles (often disguised as “parents’ guides”) to give their kids an “unfair advantage” over their peers.
On closer look, disappointingly, these preschool “enrichment math” books are often mere rehashed primary one (or grade one) assessment math titles.
Fr: Cartoon from Judy Smith Hallett
I decided not to showcase any covers of these oft-drill-and-kill kindergarten math titles here to avoid any perception that I’m endorsing some local authors or their publishers.
Notion, Not Notation
Debatably, it’s no harm getting preschoolers to start thinking algebraically long before they’re formally taught generalized arithmetic. Yes to pre-algebraic thinking but no to algebraic notation or equation for kindergarteners.
Personally, I’ve yet to see any decent locally published K–2 Singapore math titles in bookstores (other than through some questions in children’s puzzles books), which creatively or systematically promote algebraic thinking skills.
In the last two decades, there had been a number of journal articles and a few NCTM (and even some AMS) titles that feature activities or nonroutine questions that champion pre-algebraic thinking at the kindergarten level.
It’s a pity that Pre-K and kindergarten teachers (and mathepreneurs) haven’t leveraged on these rich resources to come up with supplementary math titles to evangelize the algebraic gospel to K–2 students.
The raison-d’être of premature algebra teaching
In Singapore, a mecca for brain-unfriendly, budget-friendly assessment (or supplementary) math titles, it looks rather surprising that local Singapore writers have so far not come up with an “Algebra for Babies or Toddlers” when local libraries already carry catchy foreign titles like Bayesian Probability for Babies and Pythagorean Theorem for Babies.
Ripe Harvest but Few Workers
The time is ripe for creative math educators, local or foreign-born, to publish a creative algebra series for toddlers and kindergarteners of kiasu parents, but it looks like the writers who’d help pluck up the fruits are few. An untapped market for publishers that want to move away from canned or drill-and-kill preschool math titles.
Mask Art as Therapy. Original un-memed photo from Hunny & Lummy’s “Masks of Singapore” (2021).
What mathematical or nonmathematical crisis are you presently facing or undergoing? Mid-life crisis? Existential crisis? Financial crisis? Relational crisis? Post-pandemic crisis?
Have you forgotten what it means to enjoy math? If you’re a school teacher or university lecturer, are you planning to leave the [Singapore’s or US’s or XYZ’s ] rigid educational system to pursue your mathematical dream?
If you’re an editor, are you longing for the day when you don’t have to handle those quasi-uneditable manuscripts once you’ve paid up your mortgage or send your children to college?
And if you’re a writer, do you long (or pray?) for those pseudo-math editors to get promoted to their next level of incompetency, where they’re less likely to adulterate your manuscript?
Math & Mask
Beyond the mask that we wear to function in our daily lives as math educators (lecturers, teachers, tutors, editors, writers, consultants, managing editors, publishing managers, …), who are we?
Do you see yourself enjoying the mathematical journey while you’re building your career or struggling to pay the bill? When you take off your daily masks, when you don’t feel the pressure to pretend, when you’d simply be yourself, what does it feel like? What does it smell like? What does it taste like? What does it sound like?
A Commandment to Deal with the Mask of Pride
Mathematical Synesthesia
Can you visualize the color of infinity? Taste the number zero? Smell the fragrance of pi? Or you think these synesthetic experiences are only reserved for autistics or idiot savants?
We all came into this world with zero, and we’ll also leave it with zero but the [mathematical] spirit of life we’ve lived in our lifetime. Are you always waiting for permission to write that math book? Or hoping that when you retire, you’d have the time (and space) to explore and pursue that math pet project?
Are you petrified that others might witness that you’ve been a victim of the imposter syndrome, as you get promoted and being tagged with bigger flowery job titles? Still struggling to fake it until you make it?
Unmask Your Math
To make a mark in math or math education in the local, regional, or international community, you need to strip your mask away. People want to see and work with vulnerable or fallible folks, who’re prepared to make a fool of themselves, to be a laughable stock or mathematical clown, and not to take themselves seriously.
What are you waiting for? Not some other time when you’ve accumulated enough zeros in your bank account, or next semester (or pandemic?), but today. Because when you’re financially free, you’re unlikely to have the energy to do that math thing you so desire.
Don’t die with a book inside you! Or miss tithing one or two years of your life to volunteer as a math teacher in some low-GDP countries to help raise the numeracy level of the locals. Or fail to resurrect that off-atrophied “math & art” project for a solo exhibition. It’s better to fail or experience the journey than regret on your deathbed.
Remember: Let not pride, insecurity, or failure prevent you from fulfilling your God-given purpose on this side of eternity, as you embark on your mathematical journey.
You needn’t do it alone: Seek Him and His wisdom for your mathematical needs and wants. Be fearless and free.
