On 3/2/07, Robert Seely <rags@math.mcgill.ca> wrote:
But by now, too many folks are probably unwilling to change (and there isn't really an obvious better name anyway), and their collegues and students will probably follow suit, making a name revision even less likely. Pity though ...
synonyms (and even homonyms) are widely spread in natural languages simply because they are convenient. In reasonable doses they could be useful in math too. It would be worse if their use were implicit but if daggerists and involutists know that they speak about the same thing, then why not? I do not want to say that both terms are equally good, or equally bad... what I'm trying to say is that so far we simply do not know. It will be seen later whether the community will prefer one over the other, or will continue to use both... Language is normally regulated by usage rather than by directives. The current discussion is quite useful if it is about usage, but I'm afraid that it would be less useful if it takes the modality of prescribing one and proscribing the other. --zd