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Are 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

Are 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 ago
That looks exactly right, we have five digits and four fingers, apparently. Who would have thought?
Joker_vD 6y ago
One 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 ago
  Weight and mass comes to mind.
  - jkonline 6y ago
    Whoa... That's heavy #groan
  - binbag 6y ago
    Weight 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 ago
      It'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 ago
        Yeh, in general the term is just misused and confusing.
ghaff 6y ago
Though 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 ago
    Much 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 ago
      Descriptive: 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 ago
  That is also true for Russian.

StavrosK 6y ago

That looks exactly right, we have five digits and four fingers, apparently. Who would have thought?

Joker_vD 6y ago

One 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 ago
Weight and mass comes to mind.
- jkonline 6y ago
  Whoa... That's heavy #groan
- binbag 6y ago
  Weight 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 ago
    It'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 ago
      Yeh, in general the term is just misused and confusing.

ghaff 6y ago

Though 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 ago
  Much 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 ago
    Descriptive: 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 ago
That is also true for Russian.