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Pronunciations for hexadecimal numbers (1968)

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Re: Pronunciations for hexadecimal numbers (1968)

#4
The extra digit names flow well, but I think shoehorning it into the same constructions English decimal numbers use doesn't, mostly because the “-ty”/“-teen” suffixes are too tied both etymologically and phonetically to being “ten”. If I say the word “eighteen”, making it 0x18 in one context and XVIII in another is close in plausible applicability and far in exact meaning, which is about the worst case for avoiding misunderstandings. In fact I have a vague recollection of my computer architecture instructor back in undergrad warning us about exactly that regarding hexadecimal numbers: do not ever be tempted to pronounce them as though they were decimal, even if all the digits fit into the pattern.

There might be ways to fix that with variants of those suffixes, though my first thought of “-xy”/“-xeen” might be too hard to distinguish in a noisy auditory environment.

Re: Pronunciations for hexadecimal numbers (1968)

#5

The extra digit names flow well, but I think shoehorning it into the same constructions English decimal numbers use doesn't, mostly because the “-ty”/“-teen” suffixes are too tied both etymologically and phonetically to being “ten”. If I say the word “eighteen”, making it 0x18 in one context and XVIII in another is close in plausible applicability and far in exact meaning, which is about the worst case for avoiding m…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal#Verbal_and_digital...

"An additional naming system has been published online by S. R. Rogers in 2007[21] that tries to make the verbal representation distiguishable in any case, even when the actual number does not contain numbers A-F. Examples are listed in the tables below."

"1743 one-thousek-seven-hundrek-fourtek-three"

Re: Pronunciations for hexadecimal numbers (1968)

#6
post #5

The extra digit names flow well, but I think shoehorning it into the same constructions English decimal numbers use doesn't, mostly because the “-ty”/“-teen” suffixes are too tied both etymologically and phonetically to being “ten”. If I say the word “eighteen”, making it 0x18 in one context and XVIII in another is close in plausible applicability and far in exact meaning, which is about the worst case for avoiding m…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal#Verbal_and_digital... "An additional naming system has been published online by S. R. Rogers in 2007[21] that tries to make the verbal representation distiguishable in any case, even when the actual number does not contain numbers A-F. Examples are listed in the tables below." "1743 one-thousek-seven-hundrek-fourtek-three"

Fine, but is it an imperial thousek, or a metric one?

Re: Pronunciations for hexadecimal numbers (1968)

#8

The extra digit names flow well, but I think shoehorning it into the same constructions English decimal numbers use doesn't, mostly because the “-ty”/“-teen” suffixes are too tied both etymologically and phonetically to being “ten”. If I say the word “eighteen”, making it 0x18 in one context and XVIII in another is close in plausible applicability and far in exact meaning, which is about the worst case for avoiding m…

It can get especially bad when you have to deal with atee vs eighty or eighteen vs ateen

Re: Pronunciations for hexadecimal numbers (1968)

#9
That might be one of the earliest examples of someone trying to give names to hex numbers (if I remember correctly, Knuth's TAoCP might've also contained one), but this is one of the earlier pages I remember coming across on the Internet about it: http://www.intuitor.com/hex/words.html

Re: Pronunciations for hexadecimal numbers (1968)

#10
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexadecimal#Verbal_and_digital... "An additional naming system has been published online by S. R. Rogers in 2007[21] that tries to make the verbal representation distiguishable in any case, even when the actual number does not contain numbers A-F. Examples are listed in the tables below." "1743 one-thousek-seven-hundrek-fourtek-three"

Fine, but is it an imperial thousek, or a metric one?

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