#translatingenglishintologicalexpressionsisanenterprisethatdoesntworkwell

[stuffmyapteachersays]

“People like to try to translate English into logical expressions, an enterprise that does not always work very well. Let’s try a simple example: “Either you won’t go skiing, or you will and there won’t be any snow.” Using proposition symbols skiing and isSnow, we create the logical expressions: skiing ⇔ ¬snow ¬skiing ∨ ¬snow I’m not really sure which was the speaker’s intent. I think the speaker was just trying to be ironic, and math doesn’t capture that real well.”

[stuffmyapteachersays]

""The project description must be brief (no more than 2 to 5 pages)" - The NSF (National Science Foundation) The logical meaning is unclear. Perhaps this means that the description should be anywhere between two to five pages. Or maybe it means at most two pages. Or maybe it means at most five pages. You'd think the NSF could be more clear."