Re: "euclidian" or "euclidean"

From: David Kastrup (dak_at_gnu.org)
Date: 07/19/04 

Date: 19 Jul 2004 19:36:49 +0200

mhamm@artsci.wustl.edu (Michael Hamm) writes:

> On Fri, 16 Jul 2004 17:17:45 +0200, Alex
> <alexloeschediesmalk@face.cs.uni-sb.de> wrote, in part:
> > Some people mentioned here that they prefer the capitalized form. By do
> > we really write "line segments with euclid[e/i]an norm 1" or "line
> > segments whith Euclid[e/i]an norm 1"?
>
> Perhaps others have responded to sci.math already; I read this in aue, so
> don't know.
>
> I always write it capitalized, and I've almost always seen it that way.
> The same is true for most eponymous words in math, except 'abelian'.

Germans are very peculiar with regard to capitalization here: they
capitalize if the usage indicates something connected personally to
the person in question. So we'd have (paraphrased) the Euclidean
writings, the Euclidean axioms, but probably an euclidean distance. A
term used in reference or honor to somebody is more likely to be
spelled lowercase.

Most uses of "abelian" would probably be spelled lowercase in German.
But German is a language hard to get right, anyway. 

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum