tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Is it associated to or associated with)

Mariano comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20640)

Mariano — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 21:05:36 -0800

I was joking!

(I have no problems with prescriptive-yet-open-to-changing-prescriptions-if-appropriate people, Will: that one aspect of my personality I do not have any problem with :-) )

Will Jagy comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20630)

Will Jagy — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 13:09:45 -0800

Hi, Mariano. I did not check Meta last night. I am certainly a prescriptive personality. However, I asked because this usage was unfamiliar to me. So my involvement in this amounts to asking here, sending the youngster one email describing my concern, then another saying that people who actually work in these areas clearly do use "associated to," and giving the link to this thread. The next day, I got a Facebook friend request from Ken Ono. You can't tell me that's a coincidence.

Mariano comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20624)

Mariano — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:31:49 -0800

We are about to conclude that Will is THE MAN.

Noah Snyder comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20615)

Noah Snyder — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 16:17:14 -0800

I agree with Ben and Tom, there's nothing wrong with "associated to." It's commonly used by many native speakers. Furthermore, it's not ambiguous or unclear language. So all you're left with is silly prescriptivism.

fedja comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20597)

fedja — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 06:19:22 -0800

@KConrad Of course not. My English is terrible and I know of it (sigh!)... I fancy I get the general feeling of the language and can, in principle, figure things out in finite time using a few props on the way but speaking fluently and effortlessly without making stupid mistakes now and then is well beyond my abilities. Anyway, what I'm saying is that the math. usage is different from the colloquial one. My adviser told me once that some overzealous technical editor changed "в угле" (in the angle) to "в углу" (in the corner) ("угол" means both in Russian) in one of his papers. You never say "в угле" when talking about physical reality (except, perhaps, in the radar detection business) but you also never say "в углу ABC". Both would sound equally incongruous. I can give you many more examples of such discrepancies. It is hard to believe that there is nothing similar in the English language and this "associate" example seems to be very similar in nature to the "в углу" story.

As to what native English speakers do to their language sometimes, read this: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/10206/should-anymore-only-be-used-in-a-negative-statement-or-question. I lived in WI for a few years. Yep, they do speak this way despite it may strike the ear much more than "associated to".

My point is simply that the grammatical forms follow the changes in meaning and usage, not vice versa. If you want an English example, almost everybody says "a function supported on a set" nowadays despite the verb "to support" normally requires "by" in such constructions. Moreover, despite I know authors who still use "by" in mathematical texts, the modern consensus is that "by" is just incorrect there. However if you try to look up "supported on" on Webster, it is not listed as an option there anywhere...

Tom Leinster comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20596)

Tom Leinster — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 05:48:29 -0800

I'm not remotely an algebraic geometer, but I decided a while ago that "associated to" had become standard mathematical English and I was going to use it. It's true, "associated with" is what you say in non-mathematical English, but the reason why "associated to" has been successful in mathematics is that it answers a need.

If you think about it, there are other English usages peculiar to mathematics that don't involve actual mathematical definitions, e.g. the "up to" in "up to isomorphism". They can be useful.

Will Jagy comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20594)

Will Jagy — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 23:13:47 -0800

Thanks, fedja. I did send the student a second email directing him to this discussion and saying that there seemed to be a predominant usage for which I had never had any need. I did figure out part of what that engineer on MSE wanted, the Smith chart is simply the result of taking the upper half plane and mapping it to the unit disc by a linear fractional transformation. The lines of constant real part and constant imaginary part are copied over into the disc, becoming geodesics that meet at 1 and horocycles that are tangent at 1. I put a pdf there from some website. It is anyone's guess what else he was talking about. http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/244728/uniqueness-of-shortest-distance-between-the-center-of-two-circles-and-in-higher/244800#244800

KConrad comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20592)

KConrad — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 23:07:27 -0800

fedja: Did you misuse articles in the 2nd and 3rd sentences intentionally?

fedja comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20591)

fedja — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 23:00:03 -0800

The language is evolving. I doubt I speak the modern Russian anymore. I can put it as "Few people are capable of speaking proper Russian in the today's Russia", of course, but it doesn't change the facts. "Associated with" is a norm that comes from the primary meaning which puts the verb in the active mode even if it is used in the passive voice. "He is associated with a local gang" means that he made his free (or partially free) choice at some point and became a member. Under no circumstances will one say "I associate John with a blue car" in the meaning "I attach John to this car" (i.e., physically chain him to it). Such sentence can be understood only metaphorically and still it is the car and John that force you to connect them in your mind, not the other way around. However, in mathematics the word "associate" is a synonym of "assign", "relate", "tie", "connect", and a dozen of other verbs that either require "to" for the indirect object, or allow both "to" and "with". Of course, the temptation to use the same preposition for the words that mean the same is strong enough to induce a slip of tongue that transfers into a habit, a custom, and, finally, a norm. So, I guess you are formally perfectly right but you are fighting an already lost battle...

Will Jagy comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20590)

Will Jagy — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:50:51 -0800

Yemon, It took me a while to figure this one out: in an interview of David Beckham and his wife Victoria, Ali G asked about her "viral mingingitis," which she evidently once had, and he went on to ask after one of the other Spice Girls, who "had it well bad." See www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RE8m7NJfYY

Yemon Choi comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20589)

Yemon Choi — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:37:58 -0800

Will, I refuse to trust any program which names itself after British slang for "someone with mental disorder" :)

Will Jagy comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20588)

Will Jagy — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:09:11 -0800

I'm watching The Mentalist on CBS. Someone just said "associated with the Tenth Street Ghouls." I think that's conclusive.

Yemon Choi comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20587)

Yemon Choi — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 21:55:01 -0800

As a former sub-ed of sorts: I find myself agreeing with Ben, as long as usage is consistent within the paper or book being considered. However, I don't have the same problems that Ben does with "assigned to".

Following on from Todd's suggestion: I see that Milne recommends "attached to", which might not work in the cases which Ben has in mind. Perhaps "corresponding to" is a workable compromise?

Todd Trimble comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20586)

Todd Trimble — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 21:08:56 -0800

"Attached to" wouldn't have worked in your situation, Ben?

Will Jagy comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20585)

Will Jagy — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 21:01:15 -0800

Ben, it appears I had correctly guessed the attractions of this usage.

Ben Webster comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20584)

Ben Webster — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 20:55:55 -0800

My coauthors and once had an editor try to stop us from using "associated to" in one of our papers. I regarded it then, and still regard it, as prescriptive silliness. No one has yet been able to give me a good replacement that actually means the same thing; "associated with" obviously doesn't, since that implies a symmetric relationship, rather than an asymmetric one; "assigned to" doesn't either, since that carries a meaning of human agency, where as "associated to" is neutral in that regard. Until the day I find an appropriate replacement (and, let's face it, probably afterward), I'm going to continue to use "associated to," even if it annoys Will.

Will Jagy comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20582)

Will Jagy — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 20:21:19 -0800

Alberto, that's interesting. Good to have someone to blame.

Alberto GarciaRaboso comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20581)

Alberto GarciaRaboso — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 20:12:33 -0800

From J.S. Milne's webpage (http://www.jmilne.org/math/words.html):
------
Don't use "associate to"
Instead use "associate with" or "attach to", whichever is more appropriate. In English, you may associate with gangsters, or attach yourself to the Crips, but you may not associate to either: "associate to" is not English (native French and Italian speakers please take note). Alas,this particular illiteracy has become almost standard in scientific journals -- where once we had two expressions "attach to" and "associate with" with distinct uses, we now have only one "associate to = attach-to-associate-with". [Even Google Translate gets this right: it translates "associé à" correctly as "associated with".]
------

Although I can't find the reference right now, I read somewhere that the usage of "associated to" in mathematics was started by algebraic geometers. A lot of the algebraic geometry literature in the mid 20th century was written in French, and the "associé à" was mistranslated as "associated to" so many times that it ended up confusing the rest of mathematicians.

Even today it is incredibly common, at least in algebraic geometry: a Google search for "sheaf associated with a presheaf" (in quotes) yields 5,680 results, while "sheaf associated to a presheaf" turns up 17,600.

Will Jagy comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20580)

Will Jagy — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 20:07:49 -0800

Thanks, Todd. I am sending the comment. as he has already submitted the preprint it probably does not matter. I do remember Harry Gindi going on and on about that when I began looking here in early 2010.

Todd Trimble comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20579)

Todd Trimble — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 19:54:48 -0800

Well, I agree with you on the grammar. I googled this a minute ago, and found this if you want back-up: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=594438. Not that you need it.

Will Jagy comments on "Is it associated to or associated with" (20578)

Will Jagy — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 19:47:39 -0800

Hi, Folks. A student of Ken Ono just sent me a very nice item related to my stuff, where he shows GRH implies everything in my list of probable widgets actually is a widget. About three times a page he says something is "associated to" something else, which grates on my nerves a bit. However, i can see that this might be standard usage in the modular forms industry. The difference, I guess, is that the first item is being assigned to the second item. Here's one,

"We say that a ternary quadratic form Q is associated to an elliptic curve E/Q if the cuspidal part of its theta function is a Hecke eigenform which lifts, under the Shimura correspondence, to the cusp form associated to E."

So, two associations in one sentence.

Just hoping for feedback here. I don't see this as a successful MO question. Also, I am not obligated to comment on the language. But I could...