On Mon, Aug 01, 2016 at 03:31:45PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> 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? I think in my head I rewrite any multiplication like "N of M" as having "N" as the smaller number. I.e., it is conceptually simpler to me to count five 30's, then 30 five's (even though I do not implement it in my head as a sequence of additions, of course; I'd probably do that particular case as "half of ten 30's"). I have no idea if that's cultural or not, though. I'm pretty sure "half of ten 30's" was not taught in schools. All I remember of grade school multiplication is them insisting we write down all of our steps, no matter how trivial the problem would be to do in our heads. :) -Peff -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html