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The extra digit names flow well, but I think shoehorning it into the same constructions English decimal numbers use doesn't, mostly because the “-ty”/“-teen” su
by dasyatidprime 7y ago
The extra digit names flow well, but I think shoehorning it into the same constructions English decimal numbers use doesn't, mostly because the “-ty”/“-teen” suffixes are too tied both etymologically and phonetically to being “ten”. If I say the word “eighteen”, making it 0x18 in one context and XVIII in another is close in plausible applicability and far in exact meaning, which is about the worst case for avoiding misunderstandings. In fact I have a vague recollection of my computer architecture instructor back in undergrad warning us about exactly that regarding hexadecimal numbers: do not ever be tempted to pronounce them as though they were decimal, even if all the digits fit into the pattern.
There might be ways to fix that with variants of those suffixes, though my first thought of “-xy”/“-xeen” might be too hard to distinguish in a noisy auditory environment.
- 1wd 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal#Verbal_and_digital_representations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal#Verbal_and_digital... "An additional naming system has been published online by S. R. Rogers in 2007[21] that tries to make the verbal representation distiguishable in any case, even when the actual number does not contain numbers A-F. Examples are listed in the tables below." "1743 one-thousek-seven-hundrek-fourtek-three"
- romwell 7y agoFine, but is it an imperial thousek, or a metric one?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ddingus 7y agoIs imperial thou = 1024?
- reaperducer 7y agoNo, an imperial thousand is 1066.
- faissaloo 7y agoIt can get especially bad when you have to deal with atee vs eighty or eighteen vs ateen
- mc32 7y agoIsn’t an issue what the words for numbers mean? Does thousand mean the quantity itself or does it mean the decimal 1000? In other words thousand = 1000 (dec) and 0x3E8 (hex). Are they both pronounced “thousand”? When someone says mix a thousand liters of glycol with ten kilograms of salt, both 1000 (dec) and 0x3E8 (hex) mean “thousand” each of something. The only way to get around this is if every whole number on the number line had a unique name and could be represented by any numbering system.
- wlesieutre 7y agoSame question arises in binary - you could read "1000" as one thousand, but people are going to think you meant "whatever the base 10 quantity of 1000 is in binary" when what you actually meant was eight. It's easier to just always spell out anything that's not base 10.
- OJFord 7y agoIf someone said to me 'one thousand base sixteen' I would think '=> 1000_16 => 0x1000'; certainly not that they were converting all numbers to base ten solely for the purpose of speech. Thus, I agree with you, there's value in making digits beyond 9 pronouncable for higher bases (if dealing with them enough to make devising the system worthwhile of course).
- kbwt 7y agoI would think exactly the opposite.
- PowerfulWizard 7y agoI endorse that warning, I try to never pronounce i.e. 0x10 as "ten", just "hex one zero". After I wasted an hour hunting down somewhere I misused a number having the wrong base, it just isn't worth it.