Talk:Right angle (geometry)

first sentence

The first sentence has the word angle in it five times! Surely this is excessive! Hayford Peirce 12:56, 14 August 2008 (CDT)

Indeed, I had put that on watch for when I felt able to concentrate on editing it. But for now I'll just crush that capital... - Not to mention ten angles in the rest! - Ro Thorpe 14:45, 14 August 2008 (CDT)

Maybe we should keep it and nominate it prominently somewhere as: "The single most inglorious sentence of all of Citizendium. And maybe Wikipedia, too...." Hayford Peirce 16:19, 14 August 2008 (CDT)

Thank you for your feedback. I look forward to your alternative proposals. --Miguel Adérito Trigueira 01:54, 15 August 2008 (CDT)

some positive proposals

• The Merriam-Webster 11th Edition Collegiate Dictionary, pretty much the standard USA dictionary of today, defines a right angle as: "the angle bounded by two lines perpendicular to each other; an angle of 90 degrees or 1/2 pi radians."

• The Concise Oxford Dictionary, Fifth Edition of 1964, defines it thusly: "neither acute nor obtuse, of 90 degrees, made by lines meeting not obliquely but perpendicularly"

• The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, a pretty hefty book of 1992, weighs in with "n. mathematics. An angle formed by the perpendicular intersection of two straight lines; and angle of 90 degree."

• And finally, from the absolutely majesterial (and final authority) Merriam-Websters Unabridged International Dictionary, Second Edition, of 1932, "the angle bounded by two radii that intercept a quarter of a circle; one fourth of a round angle, or one half of a straight angle. Two lines forming right angles are perpendicular to each other."

• Even poor old Wikipedia has this to say: "In geometry and trigonometry, a right angle is an angle of 90 degrees, corresponding to a quarter turn (that is, a quarter of a full circle). It can be defined as the angle such that twice that angle amounts to a half turn, or 180°.

None of them, you will note, repeat the word "angle" over and over and over and over.... Hayford Peirce 11:34, 15 August 2008 (CDT)