Timeline for Negative numbers: "minus" or "negative"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
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| Oct 1, 2023 at 13:26 | comment | added | ryang |
@WeatherVane I know—and that quoted sentence is not inconsistent with this sentence: "-10 is read as minus 10". The quoted sentence is correct to explain that the word 'minus' (and the symbol -) does not necessarily indicate a negative number. P.S. I upvoted your first comment as its conclusion (final sentence) is correct. P.P.S. My previous comment's final bit ought to read: "In reading -x as 'minus x', there is neither indication nor assumption that x (or -x) is negative; I elaborated on this under Jeff's Answer."
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| Oct 1, 2023 at 11:57 | comment | added | Weather Vane | @ryang the answer says The word minus refers to the operation of subtraction, not to negative numbers. That's what I was commenting on. | |
| Oct 1, 2023 at 11:55 | comment | added | ryang |
@WeatherVane To be clear: this Answer is not claiming that -10 is read as 'negative 10'; when we (correctly) read this as 'minus 10', the word 'minus' is not functioning as an adjective (after all, 10 is not negative) but simply indicating that 10's position relative to 0 is being flipped. In reading -x as 'minus x', there is no assumption that $x$ is negative (or that it is positive). Please refer to my comment under Jeff's Answer
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| Jan 15, 2021 at 11:59 | comment | added | laugh salutes Monica C | Also, a late thank you @WeatherVane for providing the evidence of usage that I was looking for. I indeed suspected that "negative ten" is not used by British speakers. | |
| Jan 11, 2018 at 7:38 | comment | added | laugh salutes Monica C | Thanks for the reference @user159691, this is (sorry of) the kind of authoritative text I was looking for. Still looking for more. | |
| Jan 10, 2018 at 22:30 | comment | added | Andrew | @WeatherVane it's the same in the US. "Minus 10" is common. Most students can tell from context whether the speaker is referring to subtraction or a negative number. I think this M-W guide is optimistic, not realistic. | |
| Jan 10, 2018 at 22:02 | comment | added | Weather Vane |
This seems to be US usage. In UK we never say "negative 10". It means "there is nothing here with 10" or similar. The number -10 is said as minus 10.
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| Jan 10, 2018 at 21:53 | history | answered | user29952 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |