What to call a four-place operator
John Mackin
john at basser.oz
Mon Aug 7 03:20:26 AEST 1989
In article <2422 at basser.oz>, I wrote:
> In article <14181 at haddock.ima.isc.com> karl at haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) writes:
>
> > (PS: I think the word for 4-adic is "tetradic" or "quadary", not "quadratic".)
> [...]
> Suggestions are most welcome --
Well, I got two, and they're both right.
From: Chris Torek <chris at mimsy.umd.edu>
`Quaternary', of course.
Chris
This is just the word I couldn't think of (hangs head in shame :-).
And furthermore,
From: Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn at diku.dk>
Subject: Tetradic
`Monadic' means `like a monad.'
`Dyadic' means `like a dyad.'
They are used just the same when talking about operators.
It may not be classical, but it's normal.
Thanks for pointing this out, Lars. I was so hung up on finding a
word that went with `unary' and `binary' that I had forgotten that it
is indeed normal usage to call one- and two-place operators `monadic'
and `dyadic' respectively, so `tetradic' is fine too.
>From the Centre for Correct English,
John Mackin, Basser Department of Computer Science,
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
john at basser.oz.AU (john%basser.oz.AU at UUNET.UU.NET)
{uunet,mcvax,ukc,nttlab}!munnari!basser.oz!john
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