Re: abutment = aboutement?

[edubuc@dm.uba.ar]

I agree with Vaughan.

Further, I have the feeling that "abutment" is not the appropriate way of
rendering into mathematical english the meaning of the word
"aboutissement" as it was used by Grothendieck.

I repeat, we should analyse the whole french sentence to come up with a
good translation.

Is it not possible that somebody (not very versant in either french or
english) had first the need to translate Grothendieck's "aboutissement",
and unlike Michael Barr who asked advise, just  came up  with "abutment"
(out of some dictionary).

and then, other people  (also not very good at either french or english)
in the same area just keep copying him  and each other?

and generated the whole cascade coming out of google . . .

who is to blame for the first use of "abutment" for Grothendieck's
"aboutissement" in mathematical english  ?   ja !!!

are we all going to follow ?

 I will be the first to use "abutment" if the word has a long tradition,
and some prestigious mathematicians have used it.

I finish with a question:  Is it the case here ?

Eduardo Dubuc

> I'm with Michel on this one:
>
>  > Just a remark about "abutment": it translates the French "aboutement",
>  > with a rather different meaning than "aboutissement".  The latter is
>  > closer to the "ending" (of some process; with possibly a little shade
>  > of "fatality" in it).
>  >
>  > The two words are related, and I don't know whether the mathematical
>  > idea behind makes "abutment" good, or even better, but I just wanted
>  > to mention the difference.
>
> Not a single abutment in any of the following YouTube videos posted by
> their proud aboutisseurs.
>
> http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=aboutissement&search_type=
>
> Evidently G needed a word with the sense of "limit" or "completion" that
> didn't overload terms that already had technical meanings in that
> context while itself having a technical ring to it, which
> "aboutissement" seems to do nicely in French.  Something like "terminus"
> might serve this purpose in English.
>
> An abutment is an engineering construct for butting two things together,
> often in the context of bridges, whether over a river or between teeth,
> and seems quite unsuitable for this purpose.
>
> Vaughan
>
>