Chess One wrote:
"David Richerby" wrote:
Chess One wrote:
[Incidentally, 'rationally' means to measure or proportion

No, it means `based on reason'. The OED gives no evidence of the word
ever having commonly used to mean `measure or proportion'.

from [L.]; ratio]

Yes, from the Latin `ratio', meaning `reason' or `computation'.
Subsequently, the word `ratio' in English has come to mean the
proportion of two numbers. But English is not Latin: the Latin
meaning of a word is nothing more than a hint as to the English
meaning of the same sequence of letters.

I'm sorry for this verbal entanglement, but your offer constitutes a
tautology, or circular reference;

No it does not. I define the English word `rationally' in terms of
the English word `reason'. I define the Latin word `ratio' in terms
of the English words `reason' and `computation'. I define the English
word `ratio' in terms of the English word `proportion'. There is no
circularity.


to use a word as part of its own definition, since reason also has
the same stem~ from 'ratio': Which does have the meaning 'in
relationship or inter-proportion' which is common speech here in the
States and not the slightest bit obscure, according to my foot-thick
Websters, and also I have a 2-foot thick version.

The stem of the English word `reason' is from the _Latin_ word `ratio',
not the English word `ratio'. The Latin word `ratio' and the English
word `ratio' _mean_different_things_.


Dave.

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