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From the post: """It’s always bothered me that you can simplify “Simplify, simplify, simplify”"""

No, you can't really. You can just say "simplify" but it does not convey the same message.

That is, it conveys a suggestion to simplify (the first part) but it doesn't convey that simplification has so extreme importance that it's worth to repeat the message (the second part).



Congratulations! You just won the pedantic comment of the day award!


Thoreau just might have been ironic.


Yes, and both the poster's thought and my response might have been tongue in cheek too.

It's not like I thought of it as a serious question, I just added it for the benefit of anyone confused by the contradiction.


Simplify * 3 ?


Not the same because it only makes sense to programmers, not a very large percentage of Thoreau's readership (or today's general population).


i was half-joking, but you honestly thin that today's general population isn't familiar with simple multiplication?


>i was half-joking, but you honestly thin that today's general population isn't familiar with simple multiplication?

Fuck, if I have to be a pedant, I'd better go all the way: well, they might be, but

1) they don't use * as the multiplication symbol, but ~ "x".

2) they don't multiply words and numbers... Repeating a string this way is something programmers do.


As pointless as this discussion is, I originally wrote `x` but considering my audience is mostly programmers changed it to `*`

I don't think anyone will have difficulty grasping that 'Simplify Simplify Simplify' and 'Simplify x 3' can be considered equal.


If you have to be a pedant and tell people to use a multiplication symbol, then use a multiplication symbol. The symbol is × (×), not the letter X.


If you want to be a better pedant, you better start paying attention, like for example to the fact that I alluded to x not being the multiplication symbol by a) putting it in quotes and b) writing ~ "x", where ~ is the well known "approximately equal to" math symbol.


"Simplify!!!"




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