# A couple of question on writing good

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-question-on-writing-good/966032>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** books-writing-myths\
**Created:** [June 11, 2022, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-question-on-writing-good/966032 "2022-06-11T12:58:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2022, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-question-on-writing-good/966032/61 "2022-06-13T18:58:31Z")

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> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#):
>
> Or you’re forgetting that, like the way English is written, _the way math is written_ is full of arbitrary rules and mutually-agreed-upon conventions. What would you tell a student who argued that, logically, the symbol 9 should mean negative six, or one-sixth, because it’s 6 upsode-down?

I would ask them how they intend to represent the number 9, and how they would represent the additive or multiplicative inverse of 8 or 101. Then, one of two things would happen: Either the student would decide that the notational idea they came up with is impractical, and I would have dealt with the question just as quickly as if I had told them “no, because The Rules say so”. Or, the student would come up with answers to those questions, and develop a new system of notation for numbers, and would in the process learn a great deal about how systems of notation of numbers work.

You’re not going to be able to gotcha me by asking “But what if a student starts to think for themself?”. That’s the whole point: I want students to think for themselves. That is the primary fundamental purpose of education.

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**Author:** ![GreysonCarlisle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@GreysonCarlisle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreysonCarlisle)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2022, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-couple-of-question-on-writing-good/966032/62 "2022-06-13T19:38:36Z")

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More to the point, if a student decided to forgo My Dear Aunt Sally and just did every operation in the order it was written, they would be flouting a convention to the detriment of their finished product. The logic behind the order of operations and the logic behind the guidelines for punctuation are similar: be clear without being cluttered.

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