Re: OT-ish: txt - Could it replace Standard Written English?

H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 07, 2003 at 02:48:34PM +1100, Tristan McLeay wrote:
>> But it makes me so dizzy to add
>>the extra six things to work in 16.
Actually, I think the thing that was making me dizzy is the fact that I
appear to have come down with a cold. :(

>>(And no, I don't count on my fingers. I think with the digits on a piece
>>of paper, but when doing something like 15+33, I would actually do
>>(4+4)+(10+30).)
>
> Hmm. I don't think in digits, I think in terms of the actual values the
> digits represent. Now as for doing 15+33... you have a totally *bizarre*
> way of doing it. :-) Why do you split it as 4+4 instead of 5+3?
Because 4+4 is so much easier than 5+3? It takes an extra (and fuzzy)
step to do it, but it makes it an awful lot easier and means you have to
memorise less. I hate memorisation. (5+3=8 is common enough that you
memorise it without trying, but 5+3=10 isn't. And then there's more
complicated things with higher digits when it becomes simpler like that.)

> I find the N. American convention of reading digits in pairs totally
> bizarre and maggelitinous. (E.g., they pronounce "322" as "three
> twenty-two".
People do that here, too, but mostly when referring to (say) bus routes,
or when there's a lot of numbers in a list you're mindlessly reading
off. Of course, they may also be read off individually, especially if
there isn't a 'zero' in it (i.e. route 860=route eight sixty, but route
846=route eight four(ty-) six).

Tristan.