What to call a four-place operator

[John Mackin]

In article <2422 at basser.oz>, I wrote:

> In article <14181 at haddock.ima.isc.com> karl at haddock.ima.isc.com (Karl Heuer) writes:
> 
> > (PS: I think the word for 4-adic is "tetradic" or "quadary", not "quadratic".)
> [...]
> Suggestions are most welcome --

Well, I got two, and they're both right.

    From: Chris Torek <chris at mimsy.umd.edu>

    `Quaternary', of course.

    Chris

This is just the word I couldn't think of (hangs head in shame :-).
And furthermore,

    From: Lars Henrik Mathiesen <thorinn at diku.dk>
    Subject: Tetradic

    `Monadic' means `like a monad.'
    `Dyadic' means `like a dyad.'

    They are used just the same when talking about operators.
    It may not be classical, but it's normal.

Thanks for pointing this out, Lars.  I was so hung up on finding a
word that went with `unary' and `binary' that I had forgotten that it
is indeed normal usage to call one- and two-place operators `monadic'
and `dyadic' respectively, so `tetradic' is fine too.

>From the Centre for Correct English,

John Mackin, Basser Department of Computer Science,
             University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

john at basser.oz.AU (john%basser.oz.AU at UUNET.UU.NET)
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