[R] [FORGED] Re: How to correct documentation?

[Duncan Murdoch]

On 24/10/2015 6:07 PM, Rolf Turner wrote:
> On 24/10/15 21:10, Jim Lemon wrote:
>> Hi Ming,
>> In fact, the notation lb/1000 is correct, as the values represent the
>> weight of the cars in pounds (lb) divided by 1000. I am not sure why this
>> particular transformation of the measured values was used, but I'm sure it
>> has caused confusion previously.
> 
> I disagree --- and agree with Ming.  The notation is incorrect.  Surely
> "lb/1000" means thousandths of pounds.  E.g. 12345 lb/1000 is equal to
> 12.345 lb.
> 
> I'm sure that others will come up with all sorts of convoluted lawyerish 
> arguments that the case is otherwise, but as far as I am concerned, any 
> *sane* person would interpret "lb/1000" to mean thousandths of pounds.

And we insane ones would read "lb/1000" literally as "pounds divided by
one thousand".

The problem is that English is ambiguous.  In many, many ways.  We
should rewrite all the help files in Loglan.

Duncan Murdoch

> If in the unlikely event that the documentation for some data set said 
> "Weight (gm/1000)", I'm pretty sure that this would be interpreted to 
> mean milligrams and *not* kilograms!
> 
> Since the description of the data was presumably taken from that given 
> in the original source ("Motor Trend" magazine) it would probably be 
> inappropriate to "correct" it.  However a note/warning should be added 
> to the mtcars help file indicating that Motor Trend got things upside-down.