Gentle Reader:
It's the middle of the night, and I can't stop thinking about something. Normal people would probably be awake worrying about the mortgage or the boll weevils in the gardenias, but not me. I can't stop thinking about these damned things < > from math class. I can't remember which one is which, and I never could. I'm not exactly a "numbers" person - more on that another time- and these things don't make a whole lot of sense to me.
I remember that one means more than something, and one means there's less than something, but which is which???? I remember some teacher telling us that this thing was an alligator, and it's going to eat up the one that is either less or more. So when I see 51>45, I see an alligator made out of a 4 and a 5 about to eat a 51. But why? is the 45 alligator going to make a snack out of this 51 because it's smaller? Because it's bigger, and the 45 is jealous? I mean it also kind of looks like the 45gator has a toothache and the 51 the dentist. I think the nice thing to do would be for the math people to just TELL US; e.g. "45 is less than 51" or "X is more than 32"
Maybe these little pictures do work for some people. People who understand and compute accordingly,
instead of making up a story in their head about how one number is eating the other one because it is mad about not getting invited to the other number's birthday party, or a sideways chorus line of alligators wielding maracas and singing about how much they love naps.
Those people are obviously crazy.
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My favorite was the one that implies "greater than or equal to" or "less than or equal to"...why can't they just admit that its one or the other? Or else just leave it all up in the air since "greater than or equal to" generally only tells you a tiny bitty bit more than a question mark would, especially once they throw in the negative integers or whatever the f they are called.
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