lb. oz.
Apposition is the writing of one thing beside another. In my youngest son's birthweight, 7 lb. and 12 oz. are apposed, and this means they should be added. Similarly, in a mixed fraction such as , the 7 is apposed to the , and that, too, means that they should be added. Notice that this well-established convention conflicts somewhat with the usual algebraic convention that when one thing is put beside another, they should be not added but multiplied, i.e.
There is a formal rule for avoiding conflicts between these two different meanings of apposition:
- Quantities with different units are to be added if they are separated by a comma and a space.
- A whole number and a fraction are to be added if the number comes before the fraction and there is no space between them.
- Quantities are to be multiplied, as in algebra, if they are separated simply by a space.
Now that we have dealt with these conventions, let's write my youngest son's birthweight in a a variety of ways:
lb., oz. oz. lb.
The first of these keeps the numbers small, but uses two different units. The second uses just one unit, at the price of a larger number. The third also uses just one unit, at the price of employing a fraction.
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