The things that make you go hmmm… on the internet!
This has got me seriously wondering about the use of the > and < in a non-mathematical sentence or indicator of quantity. Thinking about, it is the use of the symbol without the qualifier to the left non-sensical?
On another forum, the OP said that his/her use of the > symbol followed by a number meant less than. For example, All my apples are >1lb. I read this is all the apples are less than 1lb, but the OP claims that it means all the apples are greater than 1lb.
Another poster chimed in a said that the OP’s usage was correct, because the large open end of the > symbol points to the larger number. For example 5>3 and conversely, 3<5. I agreed that’s what I learne grade school also. However, without a qualifier to the left, >X always means greater than and <X always means less than.
Ohhhh…my head hurts!
Help me oh great Straight Dopers!
BTW, I’ve always and will continue to use >X to mean greater than in a sentence no matter what the majority of posters say!
BTW, I acknowledged in the thread the that since some apples were 1lb, the correct usage for both of us should have been the ≤ or ≥ symbol. Is this still nonsense without a qualifier?
I am sure what you are trying to say, and I agree with you: “>” is read “greater than”. Apple weight greater than 1lb. The large side points to “apples”.
What you were taught in grade school was a convenient memory aid, and doesn’t change the reading. The historical derivation of the symbol is interesting, but doesn’t change the reading.
Two things would make me reconsider the reading:
If you can show me that most people disagree with us.
If you can show me that mathematicians use > as a single-sided operator with the meaning “less than”
If either of those is true, then > should not be used in a sentence the way the other forum used it. It would be too confusing, and not informative. If false, then the other forum was just wrong
Yes, I agree with both answers. The question is if there’s no qualifier, i.e. nothing for the alligator to eat, does the meaning reverse or is is nonsense?
X>Y, Y<X. Straight forward. X is greater than Y and Y is less than X
However, if don’t have the qualifier to the left and just say, All apples are >1lb, what does that mean? To me and to my knowledge, the majority of people, it’s means that All apples are greater than 1lb.
*Edit: Ahhh…DING! Melbourne made me realize there IS a qualifier. It’s apples! So the > symbol is correct and the sentence is not nonsense!
SMACK Should be: All my apples are >1lb. I read this is all the apples are GREATER than 1lb, but the OP claims that it means all the apples are LESS than 1lb.
I kinda wish they would stop teaching the whole “symbol is a mouth eating the larger number” device to young kids. It’s helpful at that age to solve problems, but it’s not really teaching them what those symbols mean.
I was not taught the “alligator mouth eats” thing, though I remember other kids of my generation were. I was told that it is an arrow pointing along the number-line. Greater Than points to where the bigger numbers are if you count the numbers out left-to-right. Less Than points to the smaller numbers. I think that is the literal origin of the symbols, so it just makes sense. Infantilising the symbol isn’t even memorable, why would the larger numbers be the edible ones?
This is what the OP wrote when I corrected him/her: “ > means less than, so I said all WD externals less than 8 TB are SMR drives.". He/she has has changed the post to "less than ”.
Sorry, I won’t link to the exact forum because I like to my connections to other forums separate from each other…
Then another poster brought up the alligator thing and my head began to spin.
I agree on which symbol means greater than and less than, of course, but I still would have a problem knowing how to interpret that sentence.
Is it “The weight of all of my apples combined is more than one pound”? As in, I’m making this salad that includes apples, and the amount I’m tossing in is more than a pound’s worth?
Or is it “Each of the apples I am using is individually more than a pound in weight?” As in, use larger apples?
I never read the words, only the meaning. It’s a limitation, and often completely misleads me, but it’s the way I am. The effect is that I don’t see mistakes (spelling, grammatical or sense): if the intent can be inferred, it doesn’t matter if your words say the exact opposite. Unless I’m proofreading, that’s a good thing.
More of a problem is that I naturally write on the same basis: if my meaning can be inferred, why write paragraphs of explanation?
I think treating this as a mathematical statement is the wrong idea. “>”, used in an English sentence, is simply an abbreviation for the words “greater than”. If the sentence doesn’t make sense after performing that substitution, it’s not grammatical (or maybe just incorrect).
“1lb< all my apples”, despite just reversing the sides (always legal in a mathematical inequality), isn’t a correct English sentence. “One pound less than all my apples” is both missing a word, and is so awkwardly phrased that it basically doesn’t make sense.
“>”, the mathematical symbol, isn’t an abbreviation. It’s a declaration about the relationship between the left and right sides of the inequality. That’s sometimes phrased as “greater than”, but it’s not quite the same thing.
I think whether or not it is grammatical depends on whether you interpret it to mean ‘less than’ or ‘is less than’ (after all, = can mean ‘equals’ or ‘is equal to’)
“1lb is less than all my apples” would be an unusual way to state something, but it’s not ungrammatical, I think.
