Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!caen!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!kinnersley
From: kinnersley@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (Bill Kinnersley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: class-sic. [Re: On whether C has ...]
Message-ID: <27770.278aef90@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Date: 9 Jan 91 16:25:20 GMT
References: <20021@yunexus.YorkU.CA> <24547:Jan822:05:4191@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <20058@yunexus.YorkU.CA> <27942:Jan902:20:0791@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Organization: University of Kansas Academic Computing Services
Lines: 18

In article <27942:Jan902:20:0791@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>, 
   brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
> 
> No. I would rather subscribe to the standard definition. One of the
> flaws of an education in mathematics is that you learn little tolerance
> for attempts to corrupt the standard definitions of words.
> 
Maybe that's one of the flaws in *your* education in mathematics.  Apparently
you were made to memorize and regurgitate a list of definitions at some
point, and thought that that was mathematics.  What you're supposed to have
learned is that definitions are solely for the user's benefit, and it's far
easier to just say what you mean and go on from there.

Never in my life have I seen two mathematicians spend more than five
seconds worrying about the "official" definition of anything.

-- 
--Bill Kinnersley