Re: [Fwd: dozenal and hexadecimal digits]
| From: | John Cowan <cowan@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Saturday, May 13, 2000, 18:31 |
|---|
Raymond Brown scripsit:
> I never coined words for 12^3 (a dozen gross), but Wells' "dozand" _looks_
> attractive; however, would it _sound_ different enough from 'dozen"?
I was thinking that "douzand" would be better.
> But now, of course, it's hexadecimal [took me a time to get used to
> misformed Graeco-Latin compound!]
Blame IBM marketing. The technical folks used "sexidecimal" quite
properly, but it wasn't allowed out of the lab due to the supposed
prurient implication.
W.v.O. Quine, the philosopher, objected to "binary"; he claimed the
proper equivalent of "decimal" was "dimidial". Sounds good to me.
--
John Cowan cowan@ccil.org
I am a member of a civilization. --David Brin