instruction:
Generate the answer for a given question. The question requires common knowledge of English. Make sure that the answer is in detail, long, consistent with the context, and requires general knowledge of English. To be less repetitive, please vary your language for each question. Give a proper explanation to answer, and if necessary, provide the definition of various terms. And conclude your answer if it's long. If you have used other resources (e.g., Merriam Webster's.) to answer the question, include citations in your answer. You don't need to paraphrase the context of your resources, but make sure that your answer is consistent and complete.
question:
From Wikipedia: In the expression a b = c, a is called the dividend or numerator, b the divisor or denominator and the result c is called the quotient. What's most common (in the context of programming)? dividend/divisor numerator/denominator.
answer:
Dividend and divisor are terms commonly associated with long division while numerator and denominator are the preferred terms when working with fractions. Operators, operands, parameters, and arguments are usually the terms employed in programming. If any of the OP's listed terms are at all utilised, it will very likely be numerator and denominator (in their mathematical sense).

question:
There was the following passage in New York Times' (October 6) article commenting on GOP Presidential candidate, Carly Fiorina under the headline, 'If she's a feminist, then I'm a T. Rex': 'Her record at Hewlett-Packard firing skilled Americans by the thousands and outsourcing their jobs to China and India, while almost running her company into the ground with an ill-advised merger is hardly a sterling record for any sort of candidate, assuming we actually want a president of all the people rather than a modern Ebenezer Scrooge, - - This is a woman who would deny other women control over their own bodies, as well. 'If she's a feminist then I'm a T. rex.' According to Jurassic wiki, Tyrannosaurus rex, the most famous of all dinosaurs species and commonly known as T. rex, was the largest of the Tyrannosaur family and by extension one of the largest theropods, reaching 12 to 13 meters in length. But what does 'If she's a feminist, then I'm a T. Rex' mean? Does the writer sarcastically admit herself being anachronistic? Why should it be a T.Rex, not other monsterous or supernatural creatures, say, Moby-Dick and Godzilla? Is this a cute turn of phrase? Could you translate 'I'm a T.rex' into plain English?.
answer:
All that that is saying is that she is no feminist whatsoever, being just as much of a feminist as the columnist is a giant extinct dinosaur. That is, not at all.

question:
The first time I encountered the word 'gondola' was as a 20 year old on her first visit to Venice. Gondolas, to me, were written in my memory as a flat, fancy, romantic (and expensive to ride) boat structures that traverse the canals of Venice, Italy. But soon thereafter, on my first visit to Banff, Canada (Canadian Rockies) -- Gondolas was also the term for ski-like lifts (enclosed from the elements) to get from the bottom to the top of steep mountains (vice versa). What is the etymology of 'gondola'? And how did it develop to reference two completely different transportation devices? One on water, the other on mountains? What is the relationship besides their obvious transportation connect?.
answer:
Some of the successive meanings given in the OED are: 1a. ' A light flat-bottomed boat or skiff in use on the Venetian canals, having a cabin amidships and rising to a sharp point at either end; it is usually propelled by one man at the stern with a single oar.' U.S. A large flat-bottomed river boat of light build; a lighter; used also as a gun-boat. 4a. '= gondola-car n. U.S.', which is glossed as 'U.S. a railway car having a platform body with low sides.' 4b. 'An elongated car attached to the under side of a dirigible balloon or airship. [German, Dutch gondel.] Also transf., applied to a structure that resembles such a car in its purpose and mode of attachment.' 4c. 'The car attached to a ski-lift. Also gondola lift.' So the crucial step appears to be the cabin of an airship (which is long and low), and then a cabin suspended from something. This kind of semantic drift is very common.