Tag Archives: language

Mathematic’s books

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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.

M: mathematics’s beloved constant
N: mathematics’ beloved constant

O: Buy Bitcoin’s on FTX
P: Buy Bitcoins’ on FTX

Q: Under 18’s only
R: Under 18s only

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 math project, 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 joy in someone’s day.

Gram’tically y’rs

© Yan Kow Cheong, December 10, 2024.

Mathematical BS

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A math definition that has miraculously survived the attack of digital green terrorists.

Are you guilty of speaking (even mild) mathematical bullshit with your fellow math educators? How often do you use these BS phrases consciously or unconsciously to sound more educated or “mathematically civilized”?

If your math HOD talks about squaring the circle, thinking outside (or inside) the box (or cube), or going the extra (second) mile, do you really understand what the heck they’re talking about? Or are they just trying to impress or persuade their teachers to “walk their talk” (yes, another BS term); or worse, to cover up their shortcomings or confuse the new novice teachers?

What are the chances that they may to some degree be farting around some annoying and tiresome jargon to sound like a mathematical bore?

Of course, mathematical BS goes beyond language. Think of those sadistic statistics, data graphics, or infographics, which are often intended to mislead or confuse the audience. Misinformation, disinformation, and the Trump lies—you’re lured by them, because most are often music to the ear, especially if you love indulging in conspiracies, hoaxes, and white supremacist talks.

Context Matters

If a math teacher or educator talks about pushing the envelope, the chances that they may be legitimate are pretty high. If Pinocchios like Donald J. Trump, Boris Johnson, Vladimir V. Putin, and Kim Jong-un do, then it’s probably not—the odds are quasi-zero.

How to Be a Mathematical Bullshitter

How many of these phrases mostly convey empty words trying to sound smart?

always in beta
think outside the box
zero sum game
square the circle
make a 180° turn
the common denominator
360° appraisal
walk the talk
walk the walk
big picture
big ideas
blue sky thinking
pie in the sky
go the extra (second) mile
24/7 or 24/7/365
9 out of 10 agree
journal writing
push the envelope
back to square one
learning experiences
growth mindset
problem-based learning (PBL)
the new (new) normal
miss the forest for the trees
moral calculus

To Bull or Not to Bull?

Is spewing out mathematical BS a form of ineffective communication? A linguistic malpractice you’d try avoiding to reduce any chances of being misinterpreted?

Or do you like them because they make the speaker sound intelligent or educated, albeit their meanings or interpretations are often vague or even dangerous in some extreme cases or contexts?

In most cases, they arguably add spice to the conversation or impress the listeners, because most people who use them aren’t necessarily dishonest or evil-minded, unlike Trump and his gang of morally corrupt advisers and lawyers.

If BS can get Mr. Pinocchio into the White House or remove a country from the WHO, why not you? Your politicians, bosses, and pastors do it all the time (and probably you too), whether you want to admit it or not, so shouldn’t you do it as well since everyone else is guilty of it?

Until we meet again, know that my job isn’t to cure you from any honest or dishonest mathspeak. Why?* You can’t count on me to free you from a life of mathematical BS.

BS-freely yours

© Yan Kow Cheong, December 31, 2023

* The writer is currently undergoing weekly counselling sessions for excessively using BS or PC words in his formal and informal writing; he hopes (and also prays) that he’d find freedom from linguistic obfuscation in using only simple language that even his pets at home could understand him.

Numbers vs. Letters

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A while ago, I tweeted the following math or language or brain question, hoping for a layman answer from math educators or linguists or brain specialists, who might offer a quick-and-dirty explanation to that puzzle.

Tweet from @MathPlus

Another nontrivial question is: “For a number of us who’d no choice but to learn or master a few languages or dialects to survive, why do we feel at home decades later still vocalizing or reciting numbers in the (foreign) language we used while we’re growing up rather than in our mother tongue or lingua franca?”

Personally, I find it easier to recite or utter a sequence of consecutive numbers, or to work with mathematical symbols, in French rather than in English or Chinese—or in my Hakka dialect. I find it puzzling because French has now been relegated to my third or fourth language, and I hardly ever use it in my daily communication, or in any tête-à-tête meetings, other than occasionally dropping some French jargon in my writing to appear like a faux Francophone.

Although today English is my second language and lingua franca, French remains my language of choice when it comes to self-talking (or maybe even daydreaming or dreaming) in numbers or numerals.

It looks like if we learn numbers and symbols in a certain language or dialect in our formative years, we’re brainwired to recall or recite numbers in that particular language later in our adult life. This occurs especially when we’re on our own, even though we may be equally versed or quasi-fluent in other languages or dialects.

Like cycling, driving, or swimming, it appears that reciting numbers in the language of our childhood days in later years is something that stays with us for life.

When self-talking about numbers, do the majority of you who’re forced to be bilingual, trilingual, or multilingual to survive (or thrive) in school and in the workplace also share my experience? Sounds like it’s a neuro rather than a numero question we’re trying to address here!

Linguistically yours

© Yan Kow Cheong, February 11, 2023.

Mathematical Fiction Is Not Optional

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“The Parrot’s Theorem” (translated from “Le Théorème du Perroquet”) was an instant bestseller in France when it was published in 1998.

Sylvia Nasar’s A Beautiful Mind and G. H. Hardy’s A Mathematician Apology are two nonfiction mathematical classics for both mathematicians and mathematics educators. Lesser known are the mathematical novels which often feature characters whose speciality is number theory, also known as higher arithmetic, and elevated as math’s purest abstract branch.

Mathematics à la Tom Clancy

Two novels that revolve around famous unsolved problems in mathematics are Philibert Schogt’s The Wild Numbers and Apostolis Doxiadis’s Uncle Petros & Goldbach’s Conjecture.

If you’re looking for math, women, sex, and back-stabbing, The Wild Numbers is a math melodrama unlikely to disappoint.

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Winner of the New South Wales Premier’s Prize

 

Fictional math

Who are these mathematical fiction books targeted? Math and science teachers? Educated laypersons? Pure mathematicians may like to read them, yet at the same time they may complain that the mathematics discussed in these books is anything but rigorous.

These books seldom fail to convey the following subtle messages:

• The thin line between mathematical genius and madness.

• The search for mathematical truth at all costs, and the heavy price of finding it.

• The arrogance and pride of pure mathematicians who look down on their peers, most of whom work as applied mathematicians and research scientists.

• The relatively high divorce rate among first-rate mathematicians as compared to their peers in other disciplines.

• Mathematics is apparently a young’s man game; one has past one’s prime if one hasn’t written one’s best paper by the age of 40.

• Mathematicians are from Mars; math educators are from Venus.

• Pure mathematicians (or number theorists) are first-rate mathematicians; applied mathematicians are second- or third-rate mathematicians. To the left of the “mathematical intelligence” bell curve are math educators from schools of education, and high-school math teachers.

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“Reality Conditions” is collection of 16 short stories, which is ideal for leisure reading—it’s suitable for promoting quantitative literacy, or it’d serve as the basis for a creative course on “Mathematics in Fiction.”

The joy of reading mathematics

Let’s rekindle the joy of appreciating mathematics for mathematics’s sake. Let’s welcome poetry, design thinking, and creativity, whatever ingredient that may help to draw the community into recognizing and appreciating the language of science and of technology. These “pure-math-for-poets” titles have a place in our mathematics curriculum, as they could help promote the humanistic element of mathematics.

Here are ten titles you may wish to introduce to your students, as part of a mathematics appreciation or enrichment course.

The New York Times Book of Mathematics

The Best Writing on Mathematics 2010 

Clifton Fadiman’s Fantasia Mathematica

Clifton Fadiman’s The Mathematical Magpie

Don DeLillo’s Ratner’s Star

Edwin A. Abbott’s Flatland

Hiroshi Yuki’s Math Girls

John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines

Philip J. Davis’s The Thread: A Mathematical Yarn

Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow

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Juvenile fiction—A child prodigy and his friend tried to create a mathematical formula to explain his love relationships.

References

Green, J. (2006). An abundance of Katherines. New York: Dutton Books.

Guedj, D. (2000). The parrot’s theorem. London: Orion Books Ltd.

Kolata, G. & Hoffman, P. (eds.) (2013). The New York Times book of mathematics: More than 100 years of writing by the numbers. New York: Sterling.

Hiroshi, Y. (2011). Math girls. Austin, Texas: Bento Books.

Pitici, M. (ed.) (2011). The best writing on mathematics 2010. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Wallace, D. F. (2012). Both flesh and not: Essays. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Woolfe, S. (1996). Leaning towards infinity: A novel. NSW, Australia: Random House Australia Pty Ltd.

© Yan Kow Cheong, September 12, 2013.

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Murderous math that doesn’t kill!