Talk:Zenzizenzizenzic

message: I corrected the assertion about Recorde's spelling; 
a scan of the relevant page in the original book is on the right.  -- Dominus 01:12, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spelling 

message: The article currently claims that Zenzizenzizenzic is the notation, but it's not, it's a word that is one example of the notation. A notation is how to do all the different ways that you can write things. And that's the problem with the article- it's constrained by the title which locks it into being about the word; it's a dictionary article.- Wolfkeeper 16:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Can you rewrite "A notation is how to do all the different ways that you can write things." in a way that makes more sense, please? I have no idea what you're trying to say. And what is a word, anyway, but a notation for a thing? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: A notation is a scheme for expressing things, an example written in a particular a notation is called a term.- Wolfkeeper 19:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

text: If we say an alphabetic sentence is a notation, then 'I ate the crab apple.' is a term in that notation. A notation is a way of writing things down, not something you've written in it. Zenzizenzizenzic is a term not a notation.- Wolfkeeper 19:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a way of writing down eighth powers. In that sense it's not dissimilar to mathematical notations still in use like \scriptstyle\log x, which still can be spelled out as "the logarithm of x"; one could imagine a modernized version of the zenzizenzizenzic notation in which we write \scriptstyle{\mathop{\mathrm{zzz}}}\, x for the eighth power of x, if only we didn't have much better alternative notations. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I can see what you mean, but that seems to be your OR (I don't mean that in a bad sense, but I don't think that notations are normally considered hierarchical, and the guy clearly did invent a general notation in the image). Actually, that is a thought, we could merge this with mathematical notation; mathematical notation is not very big.- Wolfkeeper 20:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be an unduly large proportion of the mathematical notation article: the history of mathematical notation is long and large and this particular notation is not a very important part of it. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:38, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's really only a couple of paragraphs, and I think we could cut it down to a paragraph and an image.- Wolfkeeper 20:41, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

text: And the guy is notable for inventing the equality operator, probably in the same publication.- Wolfkeeper 20:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zenzizenzizenzic 

message: Can we add the pronunciation of the word in the lede sentence? I assume it's zen-zee-zen-zee-zen'-sik (or its IPA equivalent). — Loadmaster (talk) 22:54, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: See WP:NOTDICTIONARY, MOS:LEADPRON, and MOS:FIRST "Be wary of cluttering the first sentence with a long parenthesis containing alternative spellings, pronunciations, etc., which can make the sentence difficult to actually read; this information can be placed elsewhere." If the pronunciation is non-obvious, and we have reliable sources for the non-obvious pronunciation, then we can add it somewhere other than in the lead sentence. If the pronunciation is the obvious one, then I don't see the point of adding it at all, and if we don't have sources, we cannot add it. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:54, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Easy for you to say. Obvious might be a bit presumptuous here. How do we know, for instance, that the "zizen" portions are not pronounced zeye-zen, with a long i sound? — Loadmaster (talk) 18:27, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Would a pronounciation guide even be meaningful, given that the main record of this word is written, from a time during the great vowel shift? —David Eppstein (talk) 19:34, 22 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronunciation