Jeff King <p...@peff.net> writes: >> *1* I have a slight suspicion that this is cultural, i.e. how >> arithmetic is taught in grade schools. When an apple costs 30 yen >> and I have 5 of them, I was taught to multiply 30x5 to arrive at >> 150, not 5x30=150, and I am guessing that is because the former >> matches the natural order of these two numbers (cost, quantity) in >> the language I was taught. > > You might be right. I was trying to figure out what is "natural" for me > in these cases, but after thinking about it for 2 minutes, I'm pretty > sure anything resembling "natural" is lost as I try to out-think myself. :)
Do native English speakers (or more in general Europeans) think of the apple example more like "5 apples, 30 cents each", and do 5x30? -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
