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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Integral types and own type definitions (was Re: Suggested method
 for returning a string from a C program?)
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2025 10:00:40 +0100
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On 26/03/2025 00:55, James Kuyper wrote:
> On 3/25/25 19:38, Keith Thompson wrote:
>> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
>> [...]
>>>                                          For me there's an additional
>>> practical fact to keep in mind; that what we call "Ganzzahl" (whole
>>> numbers) isn't corresponding to what "whole number" means in English,
>>
>> What "whole numbers" means in English doesn't necessarily correspond to
>> what "whole numbers" means in English.
> 
> According to the Wikipedia article on integers, "The whole numbers were
> synonymous with the integers up until the early 1950s In the late 1950s,
> as part of the New Math movement, American elementary school teachers
> began teaching that whole numbers referred to the natural numbers,
> excluding negative numbers, while integer included the negative numbers.
> The whole numbers remain ambiguous to the present day."
> 

That's an interesting historical point, thanks.

It's also important in such discussions to remember that the USA doesn't 
have a monopoly on the English language, or maths - they can't even 
spell "maths" correctly :-)

So "everyday English" usage will vary in time and space, as will the 
definitions people were taught in school (which most "normal" folk will 
have long forgotten anyway).


(It is entirely reasonable that the "everyday English" usage in the C 
standards be based on US American usage - even though #include <math.h> 
always makes me feel like I'm speaking with a lisp.)

> I was born just in time to be taught the New Math in school.

These days, of course, kids don't learn about any of this - they just 
learn how to ask ChatGPT about it from their iPad.