Re: Shrieks and splashes

| mensanator wrote:
|> Jeremy Boden wrote:
|>> mensanator wrote:
|>>> ps218 wrote:
|>>> I think I'm getting old ....
|>>> The other day, talking about primitive recursive functions, I
|>>> pronounced "n!" (for the factorial of n) as "en shriek", and the boys
|>>> and girls looked as if I was being even stranger than usual ....
|>>>
|>>> I essayed "en splash" as -- so I thought -- a familiar alternative.
|>>> Nope. Still got a "bizarreness reaction".
|>>>
|>>> So OK, OK, how do you pronounce it, I asked ... but no one (albeit in a
|>>>
|>>> very small group) had anything to offer.
|>>>
|>>> Well, once upon a long time ago, "shriek" for "!" was commonplace. But
|>>> what DO people say these days???

|>>Bang.
|>>
|>>And "splash" isn't a good choice because it's too close to
|>>"splat" (*).
|>>
|>>But maybe that's just here in the US.

|> Have teachers stopped saying n! as "n factorial"?

| But "!" doesn't always mean "factorial". In some contexts,
| it means "not" such as "!=" meaning "not equal" or
| "like [!a-z]" meaning "match a character not in range a-z".
|
| Saying "shreik" or "bang" or "pling" merely identifies the
| symbol, its meaning to be supplied by context.

To re-say it once again: "!" doesn't always mean factorial.
As you said, its meaning to be supplied by context.

12! is a big number. But ...

Holy doughnuts, Batman, you are how many ?
12! _______________________________Gerard S.




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