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Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Cousin

The term 'cousin' is a bit imprecise, here in Bhutan. Well, so are the terms 'brother' and 'sister'. Those two terms can refer to someone from the same village. When you get 'cousin-sister' you know things have become a little twisted. When my students bring their 'sister' to collect their school reports, I have to ask "Real sister?"

Wikipedia is very helpful, with a mathematical definition for us (click on it for a more readable size):

Got that? Maths .... the universal language, eh?
What the heck is 'consanguinity'? Is that some kind of integral?
I am working on a modification which includes the Bhutanese term. I think I will need x and y to be negatives ... or imaginary numbers.
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4 comments:

  1. StephanieNovember 17, 2011 at 9:45 AM

    Hmmm - consanguinity. Sang is blood. So blood relationship methinks. Like you and me, bro.
    Have had to work out complex family relationships when doing the family history - often have to refer to a chart!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mark TNovember 17, 2011 at 9:50 AM

    No. Sing - Sang - Sung.
    So ... con (together) + sang (sing in the past)+ uinity (you and a tea) =

    "Together, you and I sang in a cup of tea." It all makes sense now.

    ReplyDelete
  3. StephanieNovember 17, 2011 at 10:11 AM

    Hehehe! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mark TNovember 17, 2011 at 3:47 PM

    Stephanie is (1,0) to me. I am the one, and she is the zero! ;)

    ReplyDelete

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