Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!otter.hpl.hp.com!otter!sjmz From: sjmz@otter.hpl.hp.com (Stefek Zaba) Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog Subject: Re: origin of "arity" Message-ID: <1600029@otter.hpl.hp.com> Date: 26 Jun 91 15:54:41 GMT References: <3405@shodha.enet.dec.com> Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK. Lines: 42 pereira@alice.att.com (Fernando Pereira) writes: >In article <6402@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au> ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes: >>Neither ``arity'' nor ``functor'' was invented by logic programmers. >>You can find ``functor'' in Robinson's book. >> >> [various references] > >Richard's references are relatively recent. I first encountered the term >in books on universal algebra, eg. P. M. Cohn's ``Universal Algebra'' (1965). >Mac Lane's ``Categories for the Working Mathematician'' (1971) uses it too. >This in just a quick survey of my home library. > >Fernando Pereira >AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill >pereira@research.att.com >---------- Having been perhipherally peripherally involved with the compilation of the New OED, I asked a spy (Tim Bray at Waterloo) and got the following reply: |Date: Tue, 25 Jun 91 07:45:59 -0400 |From: Tim Bray |Message-Id: <9106251145.AA12407@watsol.waterloo.edu> |To: sjmz@hplb.hpl.hp.com |Subject: Re: NOED has "arity"? | |I checked, and yes, the OED2 has 'arity', but the earliest citation |is from 'Fundamenta Mathematicae' in 1968, so Pereira is ahead there; |he should drop a note to Oxford (or to me, I'm in touch with the right |people). | |Cheers, Tim Bray So, netters, Fernando Pereira's 1965 reference is already ahead of the New OED; any earlier citations out there? (Now that the source is held in electronic SGML-tagged form and published on CD-ROM as well as paper, the potential exists for the update cycle to be substantially shorter than the previous 50 years :-). A reference including the publisher's name and location is optimal. Cheers, Stefek