[FOM] informal poll terms in logic 5: fraktur vrs roman

[John Baldwin]

The final question asked to compare: Fratur N to name a structure rather
Roman N

Out of 18 responses, 8 said archaic and 4 specialized.

But my wording skewed the poll. Several of the `archaic' thought the
distinction
between N and *N* = (N, R_1, ... R_n)  should be preserved.

I confused the issue by specifically saying fraktur instead of any other
convention (script instead of fratkur) or as in the note boldface to
indictate the difference


It is clear that these are distinct notions.  The issue is whether to
ignore it for convenience in a context where  predicate symbols are not
being added or subtracted at different steps in the discussion.

The notation is rare in modern model theory because most papers are
discussing such a fixed vocabulary.  But I suspect that if I had phrased
the question more clearly, the response would have skewed to specialize
rather than archaid/



I now repeat the background parameters.

whether certain distinction between pairs of terms were archaic,
specialized or unknown to the respondent.

I deliberately gave no explanation of context and this sometimes
resulted in quite different rationales for the answers.

Given the loose phrasing of the question there were many different
responses to some the pairs.  I primarily report numbers that give
insight about the community's understanding.

Since I think fom posts should be short, I will report the responses
to each question in a different post over the next week.
John T. Baldwin
Professor Emeritus
Department of Mathematics, Statistics,
and Computer Science M/C 249
jbaldwin at uic.edu
851 S. Morgan
Chicago IL
60607
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