Re: [office-formula] counter-factual -> counterfactual but incorrect

[robert_weir@us.ibm.com]

Patrick Durusau <patrick@durusau.net> wrote on 09/28/2010 03:32:19 PM:

> 
> Re: [office-formula] counter-factual -> counterfactual but incorrect
> 
> Rob,
> 
> I think the term you were thinking of was "counterintuitive."
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterintuitive
> 
> Or more officially:
> 
> http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/counterintuitive
> 
> I am not sure I want to use a term < 200 years old but I suppose....
> 
> ;-)
> 

That's not the word I was thinking off.  But I agree the word I used was 
incorrect. 

What is that thing linguists use to refer to ungrammatical forms when they 
stick an asterisk in front of it.

For example:   "I won't eat my spinach" versus "I *ain't eating my 
spinach".

Even though we could agree that within a given formal grammar that "ain't" 
is not a valid world, we could still speak about its attributes, that it 
is a verb, that it is present tense, that it is a contraction, but maybe 
not speak of other things, like what exactly it is a contraction of, etc.

I think the use of "February 30th" is similar.  It is not "grammatical" 
within our chosen domain of dates (e.g., Gregorian calendar) but it still 
may be used within some calculations (though never as returned value). And 
we can still speak about some of its attributes, such as day of month 
(30th) but not speak of other things, such as what day of the week it is.

It is that aspect of it that I was trying to get to.  It is outside of our 
value domain, but can be used in some sorts of calculations.

-Rob