# Re: [NTG-context] text in mathematics

Hi Alan, Wolfgang and Hans Åberg,

As far as I am concerned, when I have to add a text to a math formula I use
\mbox, as in the example

\startformula
A := \left\{f : {\Bbb R}^2 \longrightarrow {\Bbb R} \; ; \; f \mbox{ is
measurable and }  \int_{{\Bbb R}^2}|f(x)|dx < \infty \right\}.
\stopformula

The advantage being that if the above formula appears in an environment such as
a Theorem (where the text is typeset in italic, or slanted) the text in the
above \mbox will be also in italic or slanted.

I don't think it would be a good idea to add new commands to treat text in a
math formula: the existing possiblities are more than satisfactory, and
moreover situations where one has to add text to a formula are not that common.
So using a command like \mbox, or \text, or \mathtext, or whatever, is not that
time consuming.

Best regards: OK

> On 8 Jul 2018, at 21:21, Wolfgang Schuster <schuster.wolfg...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Hi Alan,
>
> 1. The correct way to use \mathrm is {\mathrm ...} because it is a switch
> like \rm for text mode.
>
> 2. \mathrm is the wrong method to write text in formulas because the command
> changes only the math alphabet. This means no ligatures, kerning or other
> characters like umlauts.
>
> 3. The correct way to write text in math mode is \mathtext (which has the
> synonym \text) or \mathword. To change the style of the text you can use
> \mathtext{\it …} or \mathtextit{…}.
>
> Wolfgang
>> Alan Braslau <mailto:braslau.l...@comcast.net> 7. Juli 2018 um 16:04
>> Hello ConTeXt users,
>>
>> Does it drive you crazy to see TeX users write $t = time$?
>> (I see this all of the time by LaTeX users in Beamer presentations.)
>>
>> One can do better writing $t = {\rm time}$ (maybe)
>> or in ConTeXt $t = \mathrm{time}$.
>> Sometimes, too, I might write $t = \text{time}$.
>>
>> We also have the commands \mathematics{} that can be used in place of
>> the TeX shorthand $...$, and this also has the shortcut \m{...}.
>>
>> I thought that it might be useful to have an equivalent escape, to be
>> used as $t = \t{time}$. What do other users think?
>>
>> OK, \m{t = \t{time}} might be a bit funky...
>>
>>
>> Alan
>>
>>
>> P.S. I proposed doing this via
>> \let\t\mathrm
>> but Hans tells me that this is not good, as \mathrm{} does not give
>> proper font processing, so implementation of \t{} would be something
>> different...
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