• Tiresia@slrpnk.net
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    4 days ago

    Algorithm means Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. His name was transliterated into Latin as Algoritmi and from there into English as Algorithm.

    Using ‘algorithm’ to refer to anything other than the person is linguistic drift and therefore utterly unacceptable. Even if you’re “pulling an Algorithm” by relying on his mathematical work, then you’re pulling an Algorithm every time you use the number zero. Using “(pulling an) Algorithm” to refer only to a structured set of mathematically precise instructions is just so ignorant.

    Anyway, what were you saying about people being dumb for using “algorithm” in a different sense than how it was used previously?