This punning match is hitting a slippery slope, integral to the area we are discussing. On Jan 19, 2004, at 6:53 PM, Trager wrote: > Perhaps, then, there is a more correct (although less poetic) alternate > phrasing: > > If you never go off on tangents, there's no need to create derivatives. > >> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, Mark A Mandel wrote: >> >>> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, David Silberstein wrote: >>> >>> # Never go off on tangents, which are lines that intersect a curve > at >>> # only 1 point and were discovered by Euclid, who lived in the 6th >>> # Century, which was an era dominated by the Goths, who lived in > what >>> # we now know as Poland... >>> >>> Euclid. fl circa 300 B.C. >>> -- Merriam-Webster OnLine >> >> I think part of the humour of that quote is that it gets some of the >> information very wrong. The line fails to interect the curve at any >> point, as it were. >> >>> # >>> #OTOH: >>> # >>> # If you never go off on tangents, you keep going around in > circles. >>> >>> Nitpicks aside, I *do* like that! >>> >> >> It's also amusing, but of course, pedantically speaking, the curves >> that lines can be tangents to need not be circles at all. >> >> > >