Thanks for stepping me through that. I was able to reread and understand your original explanation. To be honest, though, I was really just trying to understan

Thanks for stepping me through that. I was able to reread and understand your original explanation. To be honest, though, I was really just trying to understand what my roadblock is in general. As I mentioned, I experience this kind of friction with most math-related writing. And, sadly, I do have at least a "passing familiarity" with math. I don't really struggle with the concepts. For me it's the communication layer: the variety of conventions that exist never seem to jell into a coherent system in the way that natural languages do - even with all of their idiomatic and arbitrary features. Anyway, thanks again for the discussion.