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From: Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Newsgroup etiquette
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2025 11:03:39 -0700
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bart <bc@freeuk.com> writes:

> On 27/03/2025 19:31, Keith Thompson wrote:
>
>> James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> writes:
>>
>>> On 3/26/25 05:59, Keith Thompson wrote:
>>>
>>>> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>>> Sure.  But most people have forgotten such details long ago -
>>>>> negative numbers are not part of daily life (except as an
>>>>> indicator of how much you owe the bank...).  After all,
>>>>> negative numbers are not natural!
>>>>
>>>> Most people understand credits and debits.
>>>
>>>  From my experience, most do not.  In particular, if you gave
>>> them examples of a transaction and the relevant accounts, they
>>> would have no idea which accounts should be debited, and which
>>> should be credited.
>>
>> Sure, most people don't understand double-entry bookkeepping.  I
>> was thinking of simpler concepts.  Depositing money increases
>> your bank account balance, withdrawing money decreases it,
>> withdrawing too much can result in a negative balance, and so on.
>> A checking account or credit card statement shows numbers with or
>> without a "-" symbol.
>>
>> Most of us here are probably in the top 10% of the general
>> population in terms of mathematical knowledge, and it can be
>> difficult to know how much knowledge most people have.  But I
>> think that most people have a decent basic understanding of
>> positive and negative numbers.  As I mentioned recently,
>> temperatures might have been a better example.
>>
>> And this is *way* off-topic.
>
> That didn't stop you having your say first /then/ declaring it
> as way off-topic!

I agree with the implied criticism here.