Re: On writing negative zero - with or without sign

Kevin G. Rhoads writes:

What you say in this post is exactly what I said in the post to which it was
a reply to,

No, it isn't. Which may explain why you removed it from your follow-up. So
let's restore it:

Actually if you plan to "restore" anything, restore it all.

I can do that, if necessary.

You were explaining that the sqrt of the sum of the squares did NOT
apply to the anti-correlated case (way back) and I missed the "NOT"
part and explained that sqrt of sum of squares applied to the UNcorrelated
case.

Actually, you only said "that" is the uncorrelated case. Your statement
immediately followed my reference to x and y, thus it appeared as though
"that" referred to x and y.

THen YOU MISSED that my explanantion was correct but inapplicable,

If "that" is taken to refer to my reference to x and y, then your
explanation was incorrect. I didn't miss anything. Rather, your
sentence was missing a crucial object. See below.

and attempted to "correct" it by providing the same explanation.

THe post of yours that I replied to originally had NO error.

Glad you agree. So it was logical to assume that when you posted a
statement that sounded like a correction, that you had identified
an error.

But my explanation in response to it was, in fact, correct.

The part after the comma, where you gave the formula for the
anticorrelated case, is correct. The part before the comma
uses an ambiguous "that". You apparently meant for the "that"
to refer to the propagation of error equation and not the x and y
example. Thus the correctness or incorrectness of the first part
of your statement depends on the interpretation of the "that".

My error
was NOT in my explanation, but in the fact that I was explaining
something you had already gotten correct. Your error in response
is, apparently, the same.

Let's call it an ambiguity. Interpretated one way, it's an error.
Interpreted the other way, it's not an error.

Go back and re-read the thread carefully.

Unnecessary.

I think you will find
we were accidentally talking at cross-purposes, each responding
to what we thought had been written as opposed to what actually
had been written.

What you actually had written was ambiguous because of the use of
"that". Coincidentally, earlier in the week, I spent time with a
thesis student going over the typos in the thesis, and I pointed
out four instances of what I call the "naked this", which are cases
of "this" without a following noun, which have the potential for
leading to cases of ambiguity. Your statement is a classic example
of why I call attention to the "naked this". The ambiguity could
have been eliminated by writing "Actually that propagation of error
equation is the UNcorrelated case".

In any case, I see no reason to continue. We agree on how
both UN- and anti- correlated errors combine, and all else
was miscommunication.

Agreed.

.

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