Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> writes: > On Wed, Aug 03, 2016 at 12:41:30PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote: > >> On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> wrote: >> > On Mon, Aug 01, 2016 at 03:31:45PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote: >> > >> > 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. >> >> Now, when you say "count five 30's", which one do you have >> in mind? 5x30, or 30x5? >> >> If you meant the former, I think that _is_ cultural. I am pretty >> sure that I was taught in school(s) to read 5x30 as adding 5 >> thirty times. > > I think I would say "30x5" in that case. But I'm not sure where that > comes from, and I'm not even 100% sure that I would say that (after > thinking about it, it's hard for me to figure out what I would have done > if I _hadn't_ just thought about it). By the way, reading "30x5" as "count five 30's" disagrees with calloc(nmemb=5, size=30), which wants to add 30-byte necessary for each member 5 times to allocate 150 bytes. Anyway, this tangent is long enough ;-) -- 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