Comments on: Missing Letters

By: Henry

Henry — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 10:58:19 +0000

I don't think eth is the symbol generally used for partial derivatives: instead that symbol ∂ does not have a stroke or bar and looks more like a backward curving delta or a reverse six. Partial derivatives are not that mindnumbing, as they are just rates of change ceteris paribus. Eth ð does have a stroke or bar, and is apparently used in Spin-weighted spherical harmonics, one of those topics which strings together ordinary English words in a form that only the initiated members of the cult can understand.

By: Dan Bloom

Dan Bloom — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:08:25 +0000

by the way, Tom, a friend in UK coined a new word today too; re missing letters. she calls them sub-atomic typos, a specise of atomic typo, google both terms to see origins, a sub AT is a word like faulty vs faculty which the spellcheck cannot find. an AT is when nuclear gets typed as unclear and also spellcheck cannot see it. Needs a human eye. These are both new proofreader terms but most people even seasoned newspaper editors have never heard of them before. maybe blog about both. No idea who coined atomic typo, but Rhian Howell in UK coined sub-atomic typos today. Give her credit. Do blog on this. Danny in Taiwan, coiner of crash blossoms and snailpapers….

By: James

James — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:49:46 +0000

Bloody hell, Col – we are in the exalted company of Expatica editors already. I reckon there must be an opportunity for you to provide pithy, word-related articles for Paul on a weekly basis. After all, what expat could live without them? What do you say, Paul?

By: Tom Joad

Tom Joad — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:09:01 +0000

I wish I were as clever as you
But my rhymes always stop at line two…

By: paul morris

paul morris — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:11:27 +0000

So the G is intoned as in ’singing’
Thought that was just my ears ringing
I’m away for a snooze
To sleep off the booze
For last night you could say I was ‘minging’.

By: Tom Joad

Tom Joad — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 08:53:44 +0000

Hey – welcome (back)

Calculus and the like may as well be in Aramaic or something as far as I’m concerned. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent chap, but as soon as people start chucking exponentiation and Greek letters around, my brain freezes.

It was surprisingly easy to get the characters to appear. I didn’t realize, but HTML carries nearly a full set of old characters, as well as most runic ones. I thought I’d be stuck with some badly drawn (by me) jpegs of them.

By: Soup Waiter

Soup Waiter — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 08:11:31 +0000

Calculus, I remember it vaguely. Differentiation and Integration, all about measuring how things change in time. I often wondered how these maths types kept coming up with strange letters in the formulae, I assumed it was Greek, it was to me.

I am impressed that you’ve got these things to appear on Ye Olde Internent, I guess that’s because they’re still used in Iceland etc. Now that you mention it, I remember the ‘Y’ thing in their town and street names when we went there last year – it’s explained in Lonely Planet.