marek@iuvax.UUCP (05/30/83)
Everybody who's had a physics course from 7th grade on up should know that... "rate of speed" = acceleration (2nd derivative of distance w.r.t. time) ...though I doubt that all utterers of "rate of speed" mean precisely that. Yours for Precision in Language, Marek Lugowski, Indiana University CS Dept. ...!puree!iuvax!marek
hamilton@uiucuxc.UUCP (06/01/83)
#R:iuvax:-39500:uiucuxc:16800012:000:247 uiucuxc!hamilton May 31 19:59:00 1983 hmmm "acceleration" and "speed" are both vector quantities; "rate of ***" might as well mean "magnitude of ***", since it's usually the magnitude that is referred to, not the direction. i'm not saying it isn't redundant, but it isn't intolerable.
ddd@brunix.UUCP (06/01/83)
Acceleration is the rate of CHANGE of the rate of change of position. "Rate" by itself means little: only on specifying what rate you mean does it take on some significance.
lew@ihuxr.UUCP (06/02/83)
One could possibly defend "rate of speed" as a colloquialism. I don't think "rate of displacement" will ever displace it. There are other common forms of displaced qualifiers, such as "hot temperature". I remember being rankled by a rock song with the phrase "see what condition my condition is in", although this was artistic license I suppose.
jlg@lanl-a.UUCP (06/02/83)
Of course rate osf speed means acceleration, and of course rate of position
means speed (actually velocity). "rate" implies "change" even if it is not
explicitly stated. If the word "change" had to be used in all of these phrases
then the word "rate" , used alone, would have no meaning at all.
("osf" translates to "of")tugs@utcsrgv.UUCP (Stephen Hull) (06/06/83)
Excuse me, but if we're gonna be strict about the language, rate of speed is NOT acceleration, any more than speed is "rate of position". Acceleration is rate of CHANGE OF SPEED. Yours nitpickingly, steve hull decvax!utzoo!utcsrgv!tugs
done@teklabs.UUCP (06/06/83)
"Rate of speed" does not mean acceleration, except to a few misguided and overly pedantic physics linguists. Speed is a rate of change of distance (temporarily ignoring the speed vs. velocity distinction). The phrase itself seems to be well understood by the general population. Don Ellis Tektronix
jlg@lanl-a.UUCP (06/09/83)
Rate of speed is well understood by the general population as being redundant and illiterate. The only reason to discuss it on the network (it seems to me) is to determine what it should mean (if it had any meaning at all). This is in the context of a natural language understanding program (which oughtODshould be the topic of this newsgroup). To be 'user friendly', such a program would assume that input from humans had some meaning. If it couldn't find a non- redundant, grammatical meaning for its input, then it could assume that the input was in error. I would be very happy if such a program returned a message like: 'I don't understand "rate of speed"; do you mean "acceleration"?'
mjl@ritcv.UUCP (06/09/83)
I agree with Don Ellis that most persons would understand what is meant
by 'rate of speed.' However, I also believe that simple appeal to the
masses is insufficient when establishing norms for language use. One
goal of all writing and speaking should be concise and accurate
communication. With this in mind, 'rate of speed' and other redundant,
verbose, and fuzzy phrases should be avoided if you want to make your
point effectively.
Mike Lutz {allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!mjlswatt@ittvax.UUCP (06/10/83)
An old joke is one person who sees the sign: "Drink Canada Dry" and exclaims "That's impossible!". I had a similar reaction when I was told the organization to which my ITT Unit belonged was named: "Programming North America" Anybody want to suggest a suitable high-level language for this task? - Alan S. Watt
rcj@burl.UUCP (06/13/83)
Just resubscribed to this newsgroup, and had forgotten how DAMNED PICKY you people can be. Just to join in for fun, here is my $.02 regarding "rate of speed": All these are taken from Halliday & Resnick's popular book for first semester physics: Fundamentals of Physics. The VELOCITY of a particle is the rate at which its position changes with time. The INSTANTANEOUS VELOCITY of a particle is the limit of change in displacement over change in time at time 't' as both change in displacement and change in time approach zero. The SPEED of a particle is the MAGNITUDE of the INSTANTANEOUS VELOCITY of the particle. The ACCELERATION of a particle is rate of change of its VELOCITY with time. Hence, the phrase "rate of speed" makes no more sense than the phrase "rate of 40" -- to seriously consider talk about the rate of a scalar magnitude is ridiculous. Speed cannot possibly equate to velocity, not even in a one-dimensional universe -- travel in a single dimension still has two possible directions. I hope this quiets things down, but now I would like to start up a new one on a very closely related subject: What about words like speed, which mean one thing to the layman and quite another to the specialist. Quite often, these words mean different things to different specialists as well. Anyone want to talk about such words? -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3814 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ floyd sb1 mhuxv ]!burl!rcj
ddd@brunix.UUCP (Dilip D'Souza ) (06/13/83)
Once again, "rate of speed" does NOT mean acceleration. If we are agreed that acceleration is the rate at which speed is changing, consider this: (Taken from the NY Times Sunday magazine, 6/12/83, but there mut be lots more): "...there was a sharp increase in the rate of marriages that month...". Here, clearly, the only way for this to make sense is for "rate of marriages" to mean the number of marriages in some period of time (a month, here).