Be careful about what you read in Wikipedia. From what I have read, its quality assurance is sometimes questionable.
The opposite of non-trivial would be complex. In this case, saying something is non-trivial is an understated way to stress its complexity; hence, it is a litotes. The Meriam Webster contains a definition for the word "nontrivial". As I recall from 45 years ago, the word was hyphenated in math books and papers. Since then, the hyphen appears to have been dropped, at least by MWO. On the other side of the pond, the OED does not try to give a definition for every non-banana. Instead, it defines "non" as a prefix that is used similarly to "un", with "un" being the stronger of the two. It says, "For example, unnatural implies that something is not natural in a bad way, whereas non-natural is neutral." It seems to always include the hyphen when using the non prefix. As Shaw said, "England and America are two countries separated by a common language." -----Original Message----- From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Alan Ackerman Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 10:14 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Litotes? OK, I give up. Why is "Warning: writing such code yourself is non-trivial= !" a litotes? I looked up "litotes" in Wikipedia at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litot= es>. I can see how "not non- trivial" would be a litotes, but why is "non-trivial"? On Thu, 30 Nov 2006 20:51:07 -0500, Phil Smith III <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrot= e: >"Wakser, David" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>I believe you meant: NOT trivial - not non-trivial! > >Um, no...if I'd meant "NOT trivial" I would have written that. >"Non-tri= vial" is a litotes, and as such makes the case more strongly. > >...phsiii >========================= ========================== ============ ===========
