From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2006-08-11T22:34:16+09:00
Subject: Re: nonce

dblack@wobblini.net wrote:
> Hi --
>
> On Fri, 11 Aug 2006, Martin DeMello wrote:
>
>> Same here. Also "nonce word". And I agree, it carries the wrong
>> connotations for the singleton class, whereas "eigenclass" seems to me
>> to be just about perfect, both in literal meaning and connotations.
>
> My main problem with "eigenclass" is that it's in German, whereas
> everything else in Ruby is in English.  I actually suggested "own
> class" a long time ago.  Eigenclass is basically a German translation
> of that.  I love German -- majored in it in college, even -- but
> "eigenclass" just strikes me as a bit joke-like or perhaps a bit
> pretentious.
>
> I've refrained from using the term "own class" pre-emptively, though,
> which in the "Darwinian" world of bringing about a fait accompli in
> the area of renaming singleton classes takes it pretty much out of the
> running :-)
>
>
> David
1. The term "eigenvector" has only become a de facto standard in English 
fairly recently. A great deal of theoretical math done by French and 
Russian mathematicians used non-German terminology for a somewhat 
obvious reason before the two World Wars. When this mathematics was 
translated into English, the term "proper vector" was heavily used, as 
well as some others. Other instances of this phenomenon are the 
Cauchy-Schwartz-Bunyakovsky inequality and the Gauss-Legendre least 
squares algorithm. :)

2. What's an "eigen-nonce"?

<ducking>