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We've discussed this topic some time back, but now I'm wondering:
If cardinal numbers are 1, 2, 3, are they also one, two, and three?
If ordinal numbers are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, are they also first, second, and third?
I realize that technically one should refer to 1, 2, and 3 as numerals, Arabic numerals to be precise, but MW does refer to them also as cardinal numbers. I'm just making sure that it would be okay to refer to one, two, and three, also, as cardinal numbers. I detest math, but I've got to make sure I'm referring in writing to these numbers correctly in a general sense and not so much in the sense a mathematician thinks of them. MW didn't provide a clue.
Edit: Actually, MW makes it more confusing. I just rechecked there and MW refers to 1, 2, and 3 as cardinals and first, second, third as ordinals. I suppose therein lies my answer: both numerals and spelled-out numbers work as cardinals and ordinals...unless someone sets me straight.
If not, this could be a thread of one post.
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>I realize that technically one should refer to 1, 2, and 3 as numerals, Arabic numerals to be precise, Or Indian numerals, to give the original authors the credit they deserve. From Wikipedia In reply to:
The Arabic numeral system is considered one of the most significant developments in mathematics. Most historians agree that it was first conceived of in India (particularly as Arabs themselves call the numerals they use “Indian numerals”, أرقام هندية, arqam hindiyyah), and was then transmitted to the Islamic world and thence, via North Africa and Spain, to Europe.
In one of those full circle things, the Indian numerals that spawned the ones we use are increasingly being displaced by their progeny.
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I purely believe that the words cardinal and ordinal refer to the concepts, irrespective of the method used to represent them.
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In grade school I learned they were called Hindu-Arabic numerals.
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and what the name for primary, secondary, terciary, etc. numbers (well are they numbers? or values? more like first, second and third--
i know its been asked before (most likely by me) but it doesn't stick in my mind.
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primary, secondary, terciary, etc.Not sure what they're called but the next one is quartenary. Latin has cardinals (unus, duo, tres, etc.) how many?, ordinal (primus, secundus, tertius, etc.) in which order?, distributive (singuli, bini, terni, etc.) how many each?, numeral adverbs (semel, bis, ter : once, twice, thrice), multiplicative numerals (simplex, duplex, triplex). http://www.informalmusic.com/latinsoc/latnum.htmlOther languages have other stranger forms for their numbers and systems. http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/Enterprises/2493/kabgram.htmlScroll down to the number section ... Latin ordo 'order', cardo 'hinge, compass point' (whence our cardinal).
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I agree with Faldage. Cardinal numbers refer to the size of a set (the technical name for the number of things in a set is the 'cardinality'), or a position in a set, regardless of whether they are written in mathematical notation or English. Wikipedia agrees. I don't know what general term describes the catergory of word's including primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. It's like ordinality in that it expresses order - order of importance or effect. I found the following: http://www.livejournal.com/community/linguaphiles/497940.htmlin which someone recalls their being called 'iteratives.' k
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>Hindu-Arabic
Yep, me too. I just wondered if the name had been changed. The quote I pasted was from Wikipedia, and the phrase "Hindu-Arabic" does not appear at all on the Wikipedia site.
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>Hindu-Arabic
Yep, me too.
I bet your teacher didn't pronounce it HIN-du a RAY bic, though...
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Out of curiosity, I checked onelook.com. 13 dictionaries listed 'Arabic numeral'; one listed 'Hindu-Arabic numeral,' but, once on that page, the text indicated that there was no definition for the term. However, onelook's quick definition for both terms listed: 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on.
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>13 dictionaries listed 'Arabic numeral'; one listed 'Hindu-Arabic numeral,'
After many months transcribing Hindi, I can now easily sight-read unfamiliar words in devanagari(though my pronunciation likely stinks), but I STILL have enormous difficulty remembering what their like-but-unlike numerals are!
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I remember I first learnt it as 'hindu-arabic' numerals, but some time around high school and ever afterwards I heard them refered to as arabic numberals.
k
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Hindu-Arabic numeralsI think we call them Arabic more often because we got them through the Arabs. The Persian mathematician Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Musa al-Khwarizmi (whence our words algoreism and algorithm) was the first to describe the numbering system in his book on algebra, Hisab al-jabr wa al-muqabala, in ca.820 CE. The book was translated in Latin and was a big hit into the Middle Ages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khwarizmi
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algoreism
An allusion to the inventor of the internet?
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An allusion to the inventor of the internet?
Stet. I thought of Gore when I wrote it and it just came out with an e. It should've been algorism.
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>Hindu-Arabic numerals
I think we call them Arabic more often because we got them through the Arabs. The Persian mathematician Abu Abdullah Muhammad bin Musa al-Khwarizmi (whence our words algoreism and algorithm) was the first to describe the numbering system in his book on algebra, Hisab al-jabr wa al-muqabala, in ca.820 CE. The book was translated in Latin and was a big hit into the Middle Ages.
One of the best editorials I've read on al-jazeera's site was lamenting the reversal of esteem in which learning is held in the Arab world, courtesy of the fundamentalists, Wahhabis and madrasas. It looked back wistfully to the time when it was the enlightened Islamic world that shared knowledge with the uncultivated, ignorant and superstitious West.
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The book was translated in Latin and was a big hit into the Middle Ages.
yes! bookkeeping was a real drag in roman numerals!
chaucher (who held a position as the head of the london's customs house, --a royal commission) spent 2 years in italy in vaguely recorded 'training'-- most likely learning the new 'arithmatic' and double entry bookkeeping!
algebra was the super computer of its day--and all the 'big' money companies invested heavily in its use.
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