Third, this seems to me to be an example of the all-too-common tendency to conflate units with quantity. All day, every day, many laypeople (in contrast to engineers and scientists) assume units based on the quantity involved -- or, at least, based on the way the quantity is expressed. This is a useful tendency for people to have; it provides error correction.
If I said that something cost 0.05, we would all understand that I meant a nickel. If I said 0.1, we would not necessarily understand that I meant a dime, because the way that that is normally quoted is either 0.10, or 10. This, too, is no problem, because context usually makes clear in the case of "10" whether I mean cents or dollars.
But if I say 0.10, most people know what I mean because that pattern is well-established as a synonym for $0.10, even though any engineer or scientist will confirm that it is in a strict sense no such thing.
Now, having bent over backwards defending this customer support reps in this example, I will point out that while all this error correction and context-dependence is usually useful, it's also occasionally necessary to be able to employ stricter terminology, so that when context doesn't make it clear, one can distinguish between half a cent and half a dollar.
In short, they may not be idiots, they are most assuredly stupid.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
winterfish
no subject
Date: 2006-12-13 01:38 am (UTC)Second, this is part of why I'm a math tutor.
Third, this seems to me to be an example of the all-too-common tendency to conflate units with quantity. All day, every day, many laypeople (in contrast to engineers and scientists) assume units based on the quantity involved -- or, at least, based on the way the quantity is expressed. This is a useful tendency for people to have; it provides error correction.
If I said that something cost 0.05, we would all understand that I meant a nickel. If I said 0.1, we would not necessarily understand that I meant a dime, because the way that that is normally quoted is either 0.10, or 10. This, too, is no problem, because context usually makes clear in the case of "10" whether I mean cents or dollars.
But if I say 0.10, most people know what I mean because that pattern is well-established as a synonym for $0.10, even though any engineer or scientist will confirm that it is in a strict sense no such thing.
Now, having bent over backwards defending this customer support reps in this example, I will point out that while all this error correction and context-dependence is usually useful, it's also occasionally necessary to be able to employ stricter terminology, so that when context doesn't make it clear, one can distinguish between half a cent and half a dollar.
In short, they may not be idiots, they are most assuredly stupid.
It breaks my heart a little.