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From: antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch)
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 22:29:00 -0000 (UTC)
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David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
> On 26/03/2025 15:01, Michael S wrote:
>> On Wed, 26 Mar 2025 10:00:40 +0100
>> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:
>> 
>>> 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).
>>>
>> 
>> But your school in UK taught you the same meaning of 'whole numbers' as
>> James's school in US. 
> 
> I haven't said any such thing - I cannot remember if my school taught 
> the term "whole number" at all, or whether or not we included 0 in 
> "natural numbers".  (Usually I would not include 0 as a natural number 
> without specifying it, but I can't tell you where that preference came 
> from.)
> 
> What I have said is that the term "whole number" in English usually 
> means non-negative integers.  But I don't think it is entirely 
> consistent, and I don't know what is taught in schools in the UK or how 
> that might have changed or how consistent it is.  (Note also that there 
> is no UK-wide education standard - education in Scotland, along with the 
> legal system and religion, has always been completely separate in 
> Scotland despite the union of the crowns and the union of the parliaments.)
> 
> I am confident that the term "integer" is used consistently for the set 
> of positive, zero and negative integers throughout schools in the UK, 
> using the blackboard-Z symbol.  But I have no idea when they 
> standardised on this, or whether there was a specific standardisation 
> effort or just a gradual change.
> 
> 
>> So, it seems, US and UK had common 'New Math'
>> movement that supposedly didn't affect majority of non-English-speaking
>> countries.
> 
> That also does not follow at all.
> 
> It is certainly /plausible/ that the countries cooperated on this.  It 
> is far more likely that there was no connection at all.

If you take "whole number", translate to my language (Polish) and
back to English you will get "integer".  Simply, we have only
one term, that is "liczba całkowita" where "liczba" is English
number and "całkowita" means in this context means "whole".
Reasonably competent translator knows that this translated
to English gives "integer".

So, this "whole number" thing is completely bizzare from
international point of view.

I head that French were very much engaged in 'New Math', but
I think that instead of messing with "whole number" they
tried to get more advanced concepts into primary education.

In my country the 'New Math' movement was weaker, or rather
less visible.  They did not try to cram a lot of advanced
concepts at primary level.  We had sets and a little of
formal logic at start of secondary school (9-th year of
education).

-- 
                              Waldek Hebisch