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You can see from the on-line dictionary meaning as
to what the word Vulgar means now and what the word meant originally. When
the word vulgar was applied to the word fraction it was done so at a time when
the word was synominous with the word common.
It is the same way with the word pagan, which has
a derogatory connotation today. Originally it was meant to describe the
Romans who lived in villages, and thus were considered slow to learn new ideas
that people in the city caught on to quicker. Thus a pagan was considered
stupid.
The vulgar or "common people" were considered less
educated then the elite and thus something associated with the common people
became thought of as far less then desirable.
We can see that the metric system is the system
chosen by the elite and better educated and the imperial is the choice of the
vulgar pagans.
Dan
- Crudely indecent.
-
- Deficient in taste, delicacy, or refinement.
- Marked by a lack of good breeding; boorish. See Synonyms at common.
- Offensively excessive in self-display or expenditure;
ostentatious: the huge vulgar houses and cars of the newly
rich.
- Spoken by or expressed in language spoken by the common people;
vernacular: the technical and vulgar names for an animal species.
- Of or associated with the great masses of people; common.
[Middle English, from Latin vulg ris, from vulgus, the common people.]
vul gar·ly adv. vulgar·ness n.
Word History: The word vulgar now brings to mind
off-color jokes and offensive epithets, but it once had more neutral meanings.
Vulgar is an example of pejoration, the process by which a word
develops negative meanings over time. The ancestor of vulgar, the Latin
word vulgris (from vulgus, the common people), meant of or
belonging to the common people, everyday, as well as belonging to or
associated with the lower orders. Vulgris also meant ordinary, common (of vocabulary, for
example), and shared by all. An extension of this meaning was sexually
promiscuous, a sense that could have led to the English sense of indecent.
Our word, first recorded in a work composed in 1391, entered English during
the Middle English period, and in Middle English and later English we find not
only the senses of the Latin word mentioned above but also related senses.
What is common may be seen as debased, and in the 17th century we begin to
find instances of vulgar that make explicit what had been implicit.
Vulgar then came to mean deficient in taste, delicacy, or refinement.
From such uses vulgar has continued to go downhill, and at present
crudely indecent is among the commonest senses of the
word.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, 2005-10-10 13:29
Subject: [USMA:34783] fractions
On 2005 Oct 10 , at 7:33 AM, Stephen Gallagher wrote:
The term "vulgar fraction" has nothing to do with how
nice or
beautiful a number is.
On 2005 Oct 10 , at 4:33 AM,
Stephen Humphreys wrote:
It might be worth pointing out that creating a psuedo-hostility
between decimal notation and fractions and pretending it has something to do
with metric and imperial is usually the last resort of either side to win a
pointless argument.
I agree with Stephen G. I learned the
term "vulgar fraction" a long time ago before the metric issue was even
considered. A vulgar fraction (also called a common fraction and by some
called just a fraction) is a number expressed as a ratio of two whole
numbers.
It is not a pointless argument (as Stephen H. wrote) to
emphasize that metric allows us to eliminate (or at least reduce) the use of
common ("vulgar") fractions. Common fractions are used almost exclusively in
measurements done in Ye Olde English mixture of measurements. Not using that
non-metric measuring system would save significant amounts of money and time
in education MAINLY because it would eliminate the need to teach the
arithmetic of common fractions (and mixed numbers).
Common fractions
do have some significance aside from Ye Olde English system, but those uses
would not be common and the teaching of them could be relegated to more
advanced courses in mathematics. It would be easier to teach when students had
already studied algebra, for example. (Exceptions for the common fractions
"one half" and "one quarter" could certainly be made without negating my
arguments above.)
In an aside to the main issues, I consider it poor
practice to call common fractions just "fractions" because decimal fractions
are also fractions. Fraction means a part of something less than the whole and
really does not have anything to do with whether it is expressed in ratio or
decimal (or some other) form. In general use, however, we find many people use
the term "fractions" to mean fractions expressed as ratios and "decimals" to
mean fractions expressed as decimal numbers.
Regards,
Bill
Hooper
Fernandina Beach, Florida,
USA
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
Make
it simple; Make it
Metric
<><><><><><><><><><><><>
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