4 ms·

Tangent question: why do financial services pluralize index as 'indexes' rather than 'indices'? Throws me off every time, and seems to be an industry thing.

by Cd00d 6y ago

chrisa 6y ago
Looks like a super common question - nasdaq has an article about it: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/indexes-or-indices-whats-the-deal-2016-05-12 https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/indexes-or-indices-whats-the...
- pmiller2 6y ago
  I think I agree with that article. I'm used to seeing "indices" in a mathematical context, referring to an object that labels a particular subobject of another object. It seems a lot like the difference between "vertices" and "nodes" in a graph. Go to the math department, and you'll hear people talking about vertices. Walk down the hall to the CS department, and it's all nodes, all the time. I have no idea why this is, but I suspect some kind of cultural thing. Maybe the CS term and the math term originated independently? Kind of like how you talk about machine learning in CS, but a good portion of ML would actually be classified as statistics by the math and stats departments.
- ajay-d 6y ago
  Thanks! This read was more interesting than the crypto article
ninly 6y ago
'indexes' has been a just-fine variant of the plural for a very long time -- actually it's the first one listed in Merriam-Webster, so probably the more common variant, though I haven't dug into other references. That said, you're correct that the more common or preferred variant will depend somewhat on the culture/community/industry. The house style guides in finance probably tend toward 'indexes' -- in part because an index is a branded product they produce, so consistency is important -- while software/tech companies (or at least people in them) may tend prefer 'indices'.
- Spivak 6y ago
  I will say that, at least for me, indices and indexes aren’t the same word and mean two different things. This has made me realize that I’ve just naturally made this distinction without really knowing it. * In a loop i,j,k are the indices. Matrices have indices too. * Databases have indexes. The things at the back of books are indexes. Indices are things that represent a position in something. Indexes are the things — the literal “objects” or mappings or trackers.
- johnwheeler 6y ago
  I dunno why, but I typically use “indexes” when I talk about a set of lookup tables (database indexes) and “indices” when talking about positions within indexes (indices of arrays)
SilasX 6y ago
Why do they need a justification? English is under no obligation to imitate Latin plurals, and it adds no functional benefit. Edit: interestingly, the title of the article uses the English, while the body uses the Latin (although in one case that’s because it’s from a name). Edit2: Relatedly, I had a "shower thought" that even the most pedantic Latinophiles say "albums" instead of "alba". Although I also know a Latinophile who reluctantly used "alba" for a folder on his music app -- but that was only because "albums" was a reserved word.
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  I agree, it’s time we stop pushing words like “cacti” and just accept the inevitable English-ication of words and say “cactuses”. This is a tangent to the article, but along these lines people love correcting “octopuses” as “octopi”, but “octopus” isn’t a Latin word, it’s Greek, so the “-i” ending isn’t correct.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    "Virus" is also a word that frequently gets pluralized incorrectly, if you're thinking of it as a Latin word used in an English context. The only plural form that makes sense in English is "viruses," mostly because the Latin form actually has no plural. [0] That doesn't stop people from writing "virii," however. Both "octopi [1]" and "virii" are examples of linguistic hypercorrection [2], in which a speaker misapplies a known linguistic rule that seems to fit, but does not. Neither of these examples are attested in the source language the word derives from; people literally use them just to sound smart, most of the time. Other examples are using "whom" in places where the correct word would be "who," not using a preposition to end a sentence or clause with [3], and to not split infinitives [4]. --- [0]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/virus#Etymology https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/virus#Etymology [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection [2]: I kinda like "octopodes" myself, but that may just be me. [3]: Winston Churchill is frequently quoted saying something like "this is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put." This is most likely apocryphal. See https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-preposition/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-prepositi... [4]: My favorite origin theory for this one is basically "you couldn't do it in Latin, so don't do it in English." Early grammarians frequently took inspiration from Latin, because its grammar was already well-codified, mostly due to it being a dead-ish language. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive#The_argument_from_classical_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive#The_argument_...
crusso 6y ago
The real puzzler is how they used both spellings in one headline.

Tangent question: why do financial services pluralize index as 'indexes' rather than 'indices'? Throws me off every time, and seems to be an industry thing.

by Cd00d 6y ago

Tangent question: why do financial services pluralize index as 'indexes' rather than 'indices'? Throws me off every time, and seems to be an industry thing.

chrisa 6y ago

Looks like a super common question - nasdaq has an article about it: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/indexes-or-indices-whats-the-deal-2016-05-12 https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/indexes-or-indices-whats-the...

pmiller2 6y ago
I think I agree with that article. I'm used to seeing "indices" in a mathematical context, referring to an object that labels a particular subobject of another object. It seems a lot like the difference between "vertices" and "nodes" in a graph. Go to the math department, and you'll hear people talking about vertices. Walk down the hall to the CS department, and it's all nodes, all the time. I have no idea why this is, but I suspect some kind of cultural thing. Maybe the CS term and the math term originated independently? Kind of like how you talk about machine learning in CS, but a good portion of ML would actually be classified as statistics by the math and stats departments.
ajay-d 6y ago
Thanks! This read was more interesting than the crypto article

ninly 6y ago

'indexes' has been a just-fine variant of the plural for a very long time -- actually it's the first one listed in Merriam-Webster, so probably the more common variant, though I haven't dug into other references. That said, you're correct that the more common or preferred variant will depend somewhat on the culture/community/industry. The house style guides in finance probably tend toward 'indexes' -- in part because an index is a branded product they produce, so consistency is important -- while software/tech companies (or at least people in them) may tend prefer 'indices'.

Spivak 6y ago
I will say that, at least for me, indices and indexes aren’t the same word and mean two different things. This has made me realize that I’ve just naturally made this distinction without really knowing it. * In a loop i,j,k are the indices. Matrices have indices too. * Databases have indexes. The things at the back of books are indexes. Indices are things that represent a position in something. Indexes are the things — the literal “objects” or mappings or trackers.
johnwheeler 6y ago
I dunno why, but I typically use “indexes” when I talk about a set of lookup tables (database indexes) and “indices” when talking about positions within indexes (indices of arrays)

SilasX 6y ago

Why do they need a justification? English is under no obligation to imitate Latin plurals, and it adds no functional benefit. Edit: interestingly, the title of the article uses the English, while the body uses the Latin (although in one case that’s because it’s from a name). Edit2: Relatedly, I had a "shower thought" that even the most pedantic Latinophiles say "albums" instead of "alba". Although I also know a Latinophile who reluctantly used "alba" for a folder on his music app -- but that was only because "albums" was a reserved word.

bluedevil2k 6y ago
I agree, it’s time we stop pushing words like “cacti” and just accept the inevitable English-ication of words and say “cactuses”. This is a tangent to the article, but along these lines people love correcting “octopuses” as “octopi”, but “octopus” isn’t a Latin word, it’s Greek, so the “-i” ending isn’t correct.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  "Virus" is also a word that frequently gets pluralized incorrectly, if you're thinking of it as a Latin word used in an English context. The only plural form that makes sense in English is "viruses," mostly because the Latin form actually has no plural. [0] That doesn't stop people from writing "virii," however. Both "octopi [1]" and "virii" are examples of linguistic hypercorrection [2], in which a speaker misapplies a known linguistic rule that seems to fit, but does not. Neither of these examples are attested in the source language the word derives from; people literally use them just to sound smart, most of the time. Other examples are using "whom" in places where the correct word would be "who," not using a preposition to end a sentence or clause with [3], and to not split infinitives [4]. --- [0]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/virus#Etymology https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/virus#Etymology [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection [2]: I kinda like "octopodes" myself, but that may just be me. [3]: Winston Churchill is frequently quoted saying something like "this is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put." This is most likely apocryphal. See https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-preposition/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/07/04/churchill-prepositi... [4]: My favorite origin theory for this one is basically "you couldn't do it in Latin, so don't do it in English." Early grammarians frequently took inspiration from Latin, because its grammar was already well-codified, mostly due to it being a dead-ish language. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive#The_argument_from_classical_languages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive#The_argument_...

crusso 6y ago

The real puzzler is how they used both spellings in one headline.