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

Bert Gunter
Sat, 24 Oct 2015 23:40:59 -0000

I sanction this discussion.

(Google on "auto-antonyms")

Cheers,
Bert
Bert Gunter

"Data is not information. Information is not knowledge. And knowledge
is certainly not wisdom."
   -- Clifford Stoll


On Sat, Oct 24, 2015 at 4:26 PM, Duncan Murdoch
<murdoch.duncan at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
>
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