Re: Types of numerals; bases in natlangs.

Quoting Herman Miller <hmiller@...>:

> Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > Still less is there any logical reason to use a prefix meaning 1000 to mean
> > 1024. The real detrimental language change here was started by whatever
> cretin
> > first hit on the idea to use kilo = 1024.
> >
> > "Kibibyte" might be 'bizarre', but "kilobyte" is just plain abuse of
> language.
>
> You may not like it, but that's the way the language is used and has
> been for decades. A centipede doesn't have 100 legs, and a millipede
> doesn't have 1,000 legs. A megaphone isn't a million phones. Flying
> lemurs aren't lemurs and don't fly. An English horn isn't a horn and
> isn't particularly English either. Just because something isn't logical
> doesn't make it wrong; language doesn't work that way (unless you make
> your own language, then you can do whatever you want with it).
I did not say it's wrong. I think whoever first came up with kilobyte for 1024
bytes did us all an entirely unnecessary disservice, but I have no dreams of
now rectifying it by fiat.

I would, however, note that a milliped should have 0.001 legs!

                                                         Andreas