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− Round
The plus and minus signs, and , are mathematical symbols used to represent the notions of positive and negative, respectively. In addition, represents the operation of addition, which results in a sum, while represents subtraction, resulting in a difference. Their use has been extended to many other meanings, more or less analogous. ''Plus'' and ''minus'' are Latin terms meaning "more" and "less", respectively. History Though the signs now seem as familiar as the alphabet or the Hindu-Arabic numerals, they are not of great antiquity. The Egyptian hieroglyphic sign for addition, for example, resembled a pair of legs walking in the direction in which the text was written (Egyptian could be written either from right to left or left to right), with the reverse sign indicating subtraction: Nicole Oresme's manuscripts from the 14th century show what may be one of the earliest uses of as a sign for plus. In early 15th century Europe, the letters "P" and "M" were generall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dash
The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen but shorter than the minus sign; the emdash , longer than either the en dash or the minus sign; and the horizontalbar , whose length varies across typefaces but tends to be between those of the en and em dashes. History In the early 1600s, in Okes-printed plays of William Shakespeare, dashes are attested that indicate a thinking pause, interruption, mid-speech realization, or change of subject. The dashes are variously longer (as in King Lear reprinted 1619) or composed of hyphens (as in Othello printed 1622); moreover, the dashes are often, but not always, prefixed by a comma, colon, or semicolon. In 1733, in Jonathan Swift's ''On Poetry'', the terms ''break'' and ''dash'' are attested for and marks: Blot out, correct, insert, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
