Re: Please welcome . . .

On Sun, 14 Dec 2003, Andreas Johansson wrote:

> Quoting Tristan McLeay <zsau@...>:
>
> > I'd learnt the word well before I knew what a computer was; the word comes
> > in useful when you're trying to beat someone who's claimed to be first (or
> > similar). I've never heard of `minus oneth', though; it seems that becomes
> > unreasonable or too complicated for the agegroup in question :)
>
> Don't be too sure; I recall an episode from my elementary school days when
> some girl in a such situation did claim to be the 'minus oneth'. Some of
> slower thinkers started with "minus twoth", "minus threeth", etc before I
> killed the exercise by claiming to be "minus infinitith".
That'd be 'minus infinitieth' (I have no idea what it is with English
speakers and oddity, but for some reason after -y/-i-, it's /@T/,
otherwise it's /T/). But I stand corrected.

> I've also heard "minus oneth" etc in the context of the binary digits right of
> the binary point.
Or of course 'n minus oneth', which I've also heard as 'n minus first',
which sounds really odd to my ear.

--
Tristan