7 ms·
Well, digits; a thumb is not technically a finger:)
by KMnO4 6y ago
Well, digits; a thumb is not technically a finger:)
- StavrosK 6y agoWhat?! This is the first I hear of this, though you appear to be correct. Mindblowing.
- ncmncm 6y agoNot only that--different species have used different parts for the thumb. A Jurassic pterodactyl ("wing-finger") had the earliest known opposable thumb. Pandas have their choice. Primates are late to the party, but might have a claim to most use. Some cats have joined. The most important key-chord is space, followed by backspace.
- grawprog 6y agoCan't forget bats. There's a reason why their order is Chiroptera. >The name "Chiroptera" derives from Ancient Greek: χείρ – cheir, "hand"[4] and πτερόν – pteron, "wing".[1][5]
- weinzierl 6y agoAre you telling me that I have four fingers in English but five Finger in German? I'm confused, but Collins dictionary agrees with you: "Your fingers are the four long thin parts at the end of each hand." https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/finger https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/finger
- StavrosK 6y agoThat looks exactly right, we have five digits and four fingers, apparently. Who would have thought?
- Joker_vD 6y agoOne of those pointless little distinctions that English language makes but many other European languages don't. Another example is "velocity" vs "speed"—what other vector quantity has two distinct names, one for the vector, another for the vector's magnitude? The acceleration doesn't, for example; and distance and displacement are two slightly different concepts that deserve two distinct names.
- jbarberu 6y agoWeight and mass comes to mind.
- jkonline 6y agoWhoa... That's heavy #groan
- binbag 6y agoWeight isn't the vector quantity of mass. It's mass times acceleration, e.g. gravitational acceleration, g. In other words, it's a force.
- ghaff 6y agoIt's also one of the places where US units really break down. Working with pound-force, pound-mass, and slugs is really easy to mess up if you have to work that way. You're often better converting to SI, doing whatever calculations you have to do, and then converting back at the end.
- binbag 6y agoYeh, in general the term is just misused and confusing.
- ghaff 6y agoThough here is the definition from Merriam-Webster, which I'd consider the standard reference for US English. any of the five terminating members of the hand : a digit of the forelimb especially : one other than the thumb That seems more correct to me because I don't think in normal usage saying that "most people have 10 fingers and 10 toes" would be considered an inaccurate statement. And, if someone said they have four fingers on their right hand, you'd assume they meant they were missing a digit. And even the Collins dictionary has a countable noun meaning with the usage example: "The fingers of a glove are the parts that a person's fingers fit into."
- dotancohen 6y ago> Though here is the definition from Merriam-Webster, which > I'd consider the standard reference for US English. M-W considers itself a "descriptive" dictionary, not a "prescriptive" dictionary. That means that it will tell you what people who use words mean to say, but it will not tell you the actual meaning of the words. Therefore it is absolutely NOT a standard reference for English. The nuance is sometimes important, M-W was the first dictionary to give "figuratively" as a definition for the word "literally" due to the way some people use the word "literally" online.
- ghaff 6y agoMuch as I dislike literally==figuratively I'm not sure what descriptive vs. prescriptive has to do with standard reference. I'm somewhere between the poles. On the one hand see figuratively comment. On the other hand, languages are living things. And, to my example, if you tell me you have four fingers on one hand, I'll ask you how the accident happened. I also think you'll find a lot more organizations that use MW as their reference standard than other US dictionaries.
- dotancohen 6y agoDescriptive: Describes how people use the language. Prescriptive: Describes how language should be used. Descriptive dictionaries are highly favoured by those who like to effect change (I'm deliberately avoiding the word Liberal because I'm not in the US and I understand that word to be politically charged for many HN readers). Prescriptive dictionaries are more favoured by those who keep traditional values. Descriptive dictionaries can be used to say "I'm using the word correctly" and prescriptive dictionaries can be used to say "you're using the word incorrectly".
- dotancohen 6y ago> Are you telling me that I have four fingers in > English but five Finger in German? In some languages, such as Arabic and Hebrew, you have twenty. In these languages the colloquial word used for digit does not distinguish between digits on the hands and digits on the feet.
- weinzierl 6y agoThat is also true for Russian.
- greenshackle2 6y agoTechnically words can have more than one meaning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb#Thumb_and_fingers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb#Thumb_and_fingers Colloquially, for many (most?) English speakers, the thumb is a finger: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=4+fingers%2C5+fingers%2C8+fingers%2C10+fingers&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2C4%20fingers%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2C5%20fingers%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2C8%20fingers%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2C10%20fingers%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=4+fingers%2C5+... A strawberry is a berry. I don't care if biologists or botanists or whoever use a narrower technical definition in their research papers. The colloquial definition is just as valid. Prescriptivism-by-authority can take a hike. Yes, I will die on this hill. https://imgur.com/gallery/pfEnXNT https://imgur.com/gallery/pfEnXNT
- CyberRabbi 6y agoYes words can have any meaning at all. Also War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength. Edit: this is a 1984 reference for those who aren’t familiar with that book or haven’t read it.
- _Microft 6y agoFrom your user page: "My name is actually CyberRabbit. I made a typo when I made this account and HN won’t let me edit my user name." There is no user "CyberRabbit" by the way, maybe dang would rename your account if you ask him?
- CyberRabbi 6y agoYes he offered but I don’t use email and cannot contact him that way.
- CyberRabbit 6y agoIt's too late now anyway
- rcar 6y agoI believe that the real intention behind the statement is that not all users of their product are going to have 5 working fingers if they've had some sort of accident or similar.
- nextlevelwizard 6y agoThat line of thinking doesn't get you far with anything. Nothing is universal. You can always find someone with some disability that prevents them from using a product. Accommidating as many people as possible is good, but you can never accommidate everyone. Same goes for all of these "things programmers believe about X", be it names or whatever. You absolutely need to provide working product for majority of people first and majority of people have at least two names or in this case 5 fingers.
- k-gula101 6y agoI wannnt to erase data stolen from my phone
- gumby 6y ago> Well, digits; a thumb is not technically a finger:) Since you used the word "technically": actually the thumb is considered a finger in anatomical use (which is about as "technical" as you can get) just as the hallux (in popular jargon, "big toe") is anatomically considered a toe, despite having its own name. In a prior life in pharmaceutical development we had a drug program in which this was specifically important.
- dmje 6y agoDepends if you're a pianist or a violinist...
- type0 6y agoAnd koalas have two on each paw, thumbs up to that.