Vulgar Fractions!

Got you!!! :D the reason I chose this title is simple. The word catches attention! Else you won’t be sitting there, reading these lines and trying to figure out what I am up to now…. Today I don’t have anything philosophical or intellectual, as one of my friends commented on the last to last post… no photos, no poems…. Just a few quick things!

Call me geeky today :p but I intend to impart some information today…

1.       Vulgar fractions: out of the 12 years(school) + graduation (3/4 yrs) + pg (2 yrs) and further for scholars…. We always calculate fractions, decimals, sums, products….. We keep on doing that and yes, we do know what a fraction is… but coming across this word fleetingly a few months back in a preparatory book, this term fixed me! For all those who don’t know the meaning; basically the ones like me ;) ; vulgar fractions are those fractions whose denominator is not 10 or a multiple of 10.

For example: 34/57, 1/99, 25/53, etc….

2.       Vinculum: next in line is another term from mathematics. Vinculum simply means a bar. The bar that we mark above numbers on the right hand side of the decimals to mark that those no are recurring ones.

For example: 45.8989898989898989898989898….. is denoted with a bar over 89 to mark that they are recurring digits.

3.       Co-prime numbers: ah! This one’s easy but tricky still. We tend to forget some terms easily. Co-prime numbers are those whose HCF (highest common factor) is 1 i.e. the numbers who have no common factor other than 1 are called co-prime numbers.

For example: 2 and 5, 7 and 11, 77 and 80, etc…

4.       “the”: now this one’s interesting! :D many a times we hear people speaking “the” as “” and also sometimes as

Now how should we figure out the difference as to when do we pronounce it as “da” and when as “di”. Well, one of my beloved school teachers, Mrs. Sanyukta Sharma once taught us this. And I would like to present the same to you all.

Whenever “the” is followed by a word that starts with a vowel, we should pronounce it as “di” and whenever “the” is followed by a word that starts with a consonant, we should pronounce it as “da”. I know it sound a little weird but yes, I have followed the principle since ninth now… J

For example:  1. the school is “da” school

                           2. the oven is “di” oven

5.       Adverb: lastly, this part of speech which remains neglected in exercises in the workbook at school makes it a little unfortunate on its reach front. I have seen many people forgetting what an adverb is. An adverb is a word that qualifies or supplements the meaning of any verb, adjective or clause. A word that tells you how the verb/ adjective goes is called an adverb.

For example: I found the film incredibly dull.

                         Crabs are known for walking sideways.

So friends, I hope I taught at least something new or rather something that had been neglected somehow during those incredible schooling years! :D

Toodles!  J