Re: USAGE: YAEUT: "proper"

Even over here in the US this use of "proper" still has some currency
in technical jargon;  I would not at all be surprised to see "proper
vector"/"proper value" used that way in an American mathematics paper.
 But in everyday English it can never mean "own".  For that we use
various forms of the related word "proprietary".

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 11:45 AM, Eldin Raigmore
<eldin_raigmore@...> wrote:
> The inspiration for these questions is the following observation:
> In American writing, the German terms "eigenvector" and "eigenvalue" are
> sometimes translated as "characteristic vector" and "characteristic value", but
> those are such mouthfuls that usually the German terms are just borrowed as-
> is.
> But in British writing, the terms are often translated as "proper vector"
> and "proper value", and these compete favorably with the barely-modified
> German words.
>
> ---------------------------------------
>
> So, here the question:
>
> In what circumstances do UK speakers often use "proper" where a USA
> speaker would use "own"?
>
> Is such usage old-fashioned now in the UK?  Or is it still current in some
> speech-subcommunities?
>
> Are such usages limited to just parts of the UK?  For instance, just Great
> Britain? or just England?
>
> Or do they actually also occur in other English-speaking countries?
>
> Does Canadian English more closely resemble UK English or USA English in this
> regard?
>
> --------------------------------------
>
> Thanks in advance to anyone who knows anything about any of these
> questions.
>


--
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>