Sums?
Sums?
(OP)
Why to the British insist on saying things like "we got our sums right"? Are they not capable of any other mathematics operations? Products, logarithms, averages, differentials, integrals, Hamiltonians, Jacobians, etc.?

Best regards,
Matthew Ian Loew
"Organizations cannot make a genius out of an incompetent. On the other hand, disorganization can scarcely fail to result in efficiency." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
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RE: Sums?
StephenA
RE: Sums?
RE: Sums?
M
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Dr Michael F Platten
RE: Sums?
Hg
RE: Sums?
Sums are, or were, something that every person could do, while not everyone was as proficient at multiplication.
Likewise, the end of the day is indeed a period where people evaluate the events of the day and make conscious or unconscious conclusions about whether it was a good day or not.
TTFN
RE: Sums?
"Have we performed our sums and shifts correctly?"
or some other variation on that theme.
xnuke
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RE: Sums?
Anyway, what's wrong with colloquial English in spoken conversation? And that's all that the expression "sum" is, after all.
Bung
Life is non-linear...
RE: Sums?
RE: Sums?
corus
RE: Sums?
RE: Sums?
(Sorry, I had to say that.)
I do a bit of bookkeeping on the side and took a beginners course in basic accounting, and most of what accountants do is add, or "sum."
RE: Sums?
Best regards,
Matthew Ian Loew
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.