Proper name for characters 1

[razalas]

I know the proper names for the following characters:

~ tilde
# octothorpe
^ caret
& ampersand
* asterisk
() parentheses
{} braces
[] brackets
/\ slash
| vertigule

but are there proper names for the following other than the common names formed by describing how they are used?

@ "at" sign
$ "dollar" sign
% "percent" sign
+ "plus" sign
- "minus" sign
= "equals" sign
_ underline

And, I am comfortable with the common names of the following, but maybe they have their own proper names?

! exclamation mark
? question mark

Just curious.

TIA

"Code what you mean,
and mean what you code!
But by all means post your code!"

Razalas

 

[AnotherHiggins]

Dan,

Speaking as an American who sometimes refers to # as pound, I would call £ a British pound. It really doesn't come up in conversation too often.

 

[Thadeus]

Working with another consultant last year, he got me turned on to using the Spanish "Corchetes" for { and }

Before that I used French Brace or Curly Brace

~Thadeus

 

[ESquared]

I've never before heard of parentheses () being called brackets.

-------------------------------------
A sacrifice is harder when no one knows you've made it.

 

[Dimandja]

Many people do call parentheses brackets. The same people also call brackets square brackets.

Some confessions about this:

http://patrick.wattle.id.au/cameron/brackets/members/

 

[CajunCenturion]

Many people to call parentheses brackets.
Many people are often wrong.

Good Luck
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[Dimandja]

Many people to call parentheses brackets.
Many people are often wrong.

You mean like Canada and England? That's a lot of wrong people.

 

[CajunCenturion]

The proper term, as supported by the on-line Cambridge dictionary to describe parenthesis (for the UK) is not brackets, but round brackets, to distinguish them from square brackets.

Now if all the people of Canada and the UK use the term round brackets, then they would definately be right.

Good Luck
--------------
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[Dimandja]

It's a good thing you set them straight, CC.

 

[CajunCenturion]

????
We're talking about parenthesis, brackets, and braces. I don't think any of them are straight. If they were, all we'd have is a line. :-D

Then it would be really tough to distinguish between them.

Good Luck
--------------
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[strongm]

Oh, I dunno. I'm from the UK, and common usage is simply brackets rather than round brackets.

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

I only call parentheses brackets because that is what I was taught at school - and schoolboy "rhymes" to deal with mathematical order of precedence only reinforced that (the "B" in "BODMAS" meaning "brackets").

That aside, is a single ( or ) a parenthesis, and multiple ( or ) (of any combination) parentheses? Or are parenthesis only parentheses when they appear as an open-close pair?

Dan

 

[mbarron]

BillyRay,

I method I taught for remembering the mathematical order of precedence was by using the mnemonic of "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally"
or
parenthesis exponent multiply divide add subtract.


Mike

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

That puts division before multiplication... An intersting twist on BODMAS:

Brackets "of" division multiplication addition subtraction.

So that, in fact, would give different results depending on which phrase you learned:

2 / 5 * 2

If we use BODMAS (division first): 2 / 10 = 0.2

If we use PEMDAS (multiplication first): 0.4 * 2 = 0.8

Of course, in "the real world", we would include parentheses, but that asisde, is one "more correct" than the other?

Dan

 

[columb]

My 2d worth (or $0.02 for Americans)

2 / 5 * 2 is fundamentally flawed as it is open to two distinct and different interpretations. I was taught that multiplication and division have equal precedence and that left to right is used in these circumstances but I wouldn't argue with other interpretations - I would change my code. As a style guide anything of that sort is dangerous.

 

[sleipnir214]

But if we call "(" a "round bracket", that will mess up the apocryphal acronym expansion of the name for the the programming language lisp:

Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses


Want the best answers? Ask the best questions!

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[mbarron]

I assumed that the O stood for Order.

There is no hierarchy between MD and AS.

You've actually added parens for this:

2 / 5 * 2

If we use BODMAS (division first): 2 / 10 = 0.2

You've actually calculated 2/(5*2)

No matter how you arrange it:

2 / 5 * 2 = 2 * 2/5 = 1/5 * 2 * 2 (dividing by 5 is the same a multiplying be 1/5)
your result will be 0.8





Mike

 

[BillyRayPreachersSon]

Interesting... 3 colleagues have all just told me that division always comes first - one of them is a maths major.

Typing this into the address bar of IE:

javascript:alert(2 / 5 * 2);

shows 0.8 - so I guess either division does come first, or L to R is used.

Of course, I've realised I gave the answers to my examples above the wrong way around (oh for a post editing facility!)

Dan

 

[Dimandja]

Typing 2/5*2 in IE, dumped me to a google site which printed: (2 / 5) * 2 = 0.8

Note that their software added the parentheses. To me, this means that they favored Division first. If it was strictly Left to Right, there wouldn't be any need for the parens. My calculator of course gave me the same answer -- I entered 2/5*2: Left to Right.

 

[mbarron]

It doesn’t matter which is performed first. Dividing by 5 is the same as multiplying by the fraction 1/5. Or, multiplying by 2 is the same as dividing by (1/2).

I rearranged the equation from 2/5*2 to 2*2/5 (perfectly “legal” in mathematics) and ran it through the same Google calculator. It returned (2*2)/5
Note that their software added the parentheses. Using the same logic, this means that they favored multiplication first.

Like I said in an earlier post, there is no hierarchy when it comes to multiplication and division or addition and subtraction. They are typically performed left to right when encountered.

From

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/faq/faq.order.operations.html

To remember the conventional order of operations, you can think of
PEMDAS
(You might remember this as "Please excuse my dear Aunt Sally.")1


Parentheses
Exponents
Multiplication and Division
Addition and Subtraction
This means that you should do what is possible within parentheses first, then exponents, then multiplication and division (from left to right), and then addition and subtraction (from left to right). If parentheses are enclosed within other parentheses, work from the inside out.


1Some people are taught to remember BEDMAS:
Brackets
Exponents
Division and Multiplication, left to right
Addition and Subtraction, left to right

Mike

 

[rosieb]

Sorry folks, in general Brit, a ( or a ), is simply a bracket. Not a parenthesis or a round bracket, it's a bracket. Other brackets may have posh names but () are just plain brackets.

Rosie
"Never express yourself more clearly than you think" (Niels Bohr)