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Fact check: Is Mamdani introducing Arabic numerals to New York schools? (www.newsweek.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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Another post from betting market company Polymarket read: "BREAKING: Zohran Mamdani to require all New York elementary school students to learn Arabic numerals." The post has almost 14 million views.

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[+] -13 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Ok, well, this article is trying to call people dumb for not understanding a concept that is incredibly confusing to everyone

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  • [–] 15 points 11 months ago

    They're not calling people dumb for not knowing, they're calling them dumb for not investigating. If you hear a wild claim, you should investigate. This shouldn't still work because most of us here know it's been a running joke for at least 20 years in the US with continuous anti-Muslim and anti-middle-easter/Arabic sentiment and bills post 9/11.

    It shouldn't be incredibly confusing, either. It's fine to not automatically know that Amerocan/English refers to "western Arabic numerals" as simply "Arabic numerals" in shorthand. I didn't. That's why I briefly researched it when you said you had a different set of numerals in a region. Since I don't know exactly what to look for to validate my own searches, I genuinely asked you if what you learned matched what was in the Wikipedia page. I have no direct experience.

    People use shorthand all the time. It makes things confusing. I didn't know a "convection oven" was actually a "forced convection oven" until this year. In my head, it wasn't something I ever questioned because all my ovens have had the primary heater at the bottom, meaning convection would carry hot air upwards. Turns out, FCOs have a fan at the top to force better circulation. Surprise, this revolution of air fryers? They're just countertop [forced] convection ovens. Similarly, I have a gripe with people customizing cars with "coilovers". The majority of cars already have coil[spring]-over-[shock]s, but what they mean is "adjustable coilovers". It's a carryover from when cars did NOT have the various coilover designs as standard. Shocks outside coil springs, leaf springs, torsion springs, etc.

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  • [–] 12 points 11 months ago

    incredibly confusing to everyone

    Is it? I think your confusion may come from living or studying abroad, which is understandable. But only the ignorant ones who passed school while asleep on this side of the world would be confused. Everyone is told that these are Arabic numerals as opposed to Roman numerals very early on.

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