Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lecnac


 * Almost a speedy candidate. m-w.com doesn't know the word, and no relevant hits--there are 2000, but they all seem to refer to a userID, or the fact that it is "cancel" backwards. Niteowlneils 18:30, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Neutral, but searches on lecnacing, lecnac fraction, and lecnac fractions return a few mathematical papers from Mathsphere KeithTyler 19:54, Jun 9, 2004 (UTC)
 * There's a related subsub about Lecnacing that I posted as a speedy. - Lucky 6.9 22:15, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Neologism. Andris 00:14, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)
 * Please keep this entry. Granted it is a new word in the language, but these should be allowed when they describe a new concept or make an old concept clearer, surely. It is extremely frustrating when teaching fractions not to have a word to describe this process. We use the word 'cancel' to avoid, as far as possible, saying 'divide the top number and the bottom number of the fraction by 2 etc' as this can easily be confused in the mind of a child with dividing the actual fraction by 2 etc which is, of course, a completely different process. The same needs to be done for the reverse operation so that multiplying the numerator and denominator by the same number is not confused with multiplying the fraction by that number which again is a different operation completely. Any analysis of the processes involved in fractions will soon reveal that an understanding of equivalent fractions is essential to all operations. Lecnacing (although it has never had a name before) is the very process used to produce equivalent fractions. Children are most receptive to the idea as they feel comfortable having a name to describe a process. I am familiar with the work of Mathsphere and they claim that their worksheets are being used in over 10,000 schools. This is proving to be an excellent vehicle for the transmission of this new idea in the teaching of mathematics.  The fact that lecnac is the reverse spelling of cancel is to be applauded as children love to see connections between ideas.  P.S. I have just registered. The above comment was written by me -Andrewcairnes. I have not yet created a user page.
 * Welcome to Wikipedia! Thanks for registering. Sorry that this is your first experience here. Your article is well-written, and you make a reasonably convincing case for the need for such a word, but, as you'll see below, I'm leaning toward deletion. Wikipedia is not trying to scoop anyone or be the first to document new "memes on the rise." Google return only two hits on the phrase "lecnac a fraction." It returns no hits on "Alan Young" lecnac. In my own opinion, what you need to do is to document that this word is seeing some real use. That is, demonstrate that you are recording an established concept, as opposed to promoting a word that you feel ought to become generally accepted. See Your first article and What Wikipedia is not for more on our policies against personal essays and original research. I haven't searched around for Wikipedia articles on fractions and operations on fractions, but this might be more accepted as a comment within such an article ("this operation is sometimes known as lecnacing") than as an article in its own right. Dpbsmith 15:00, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Thank you for an intelligent analysis of your current thinking. If you can give me a little extra time, I will approach Mathsphere to see if they can give any idea of how widespread this concept is. With respect to the point about the time since 1980 and the word having had plenty of time to spread, I think it is only recently with Mathsphere and the internet that the word has had a chance to disseminate. It is unlikely, in reality, that anyone would have learnt this word at school and had time to grow up to include it in a textbook they have written.   Andrewcairnes
 * Delete, unless someone can muster better evidence that the word is in real use. Dpbsmith 15:00, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * best I can find...
 * Well, we already knew from comments above that it has been used by one educational publisher, Mathsphere. If it was coined in 1980 it would seem to have had plenty of time to spread. Indeed, children who learned it in school then could now be old enough to write textbooks themselves. Is there any evidence that the usage is, in fact, catching on besides Mathsphere? Dpbsmith 01:31, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * I've been teaching math at the 5th/6th grade level for 10 years, and I've never run across the term before. Joyous 02:55, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - the concept is valid, but nobody's using the term. -- Cyrius|&#9998; 06:34, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * I thought it was pretty funny, so BJAODN, and delete. Dysprosia 08:20, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * I have received an email from Andrew Cairnes asking me to support the inclusion of the term 'lecnac' in Wikipedia. He is correct in stating that our material is used in over 10,000 schools - in fact it is more like 12,000 now as the claim to which he refers is about a year old. These are mainly schools in the UK although we have sold quite a lot of our material abroad. Schools have been purchasing MathSphere material for about 5 or 6 years so a conservative estimate would mean that at least one million UK children have now come across the term 'lecnac'. We meet many British teachers at conferences and exhibitions. It would be churlish of me to pretend that we have asked thousands of teachers if they use this term, but those that we have asked agree that it is very useful. I have added a little to the article to show how it is used in practice. This is a concept in mathematics teaching that was long overdue for a name and at last one has been found. Having cancelling without lecnacing is rather like having multiplication without division, clockwise without anticlockwise or differentiation without integration. Please keep this term. - MATHSPHERE
 * Delete. "Cancel" doesn't even have an article to itself. If this term is real and appropriate, then the information in the "lecnac" article, which is rather longwinded and could be significantly reduced, should be integrated into the article on "fractions". Also note that "cancel" and "lecnac" are NOT operations like multiplication or differentiation. Whereas the result of multiplying a number is a number that IS different, the result of cancelling is the same number, with a different representation (or "numeral", I suppose). Samely, the result of integration is a different number, that is the area under the function rather than the function itself. "Lecnac" does not warrant an article in itself. With a judicious edit this article could be reduced to less than a third of its current size. A Google for "lecnac fraction" (without the quotes in the search) yields two results, both from the Mathsphere materials. This is not a used term, and I suspect that there is likely a better, more common term that describes this type of re-presentation and encompasses both cancelling and "lecnacking", as well as similar concepts. - Centrx 19:53, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * The reduce is "To change (a number or quantity) from one denomination into or to another." (OED) It commonly conveys a suggestion of diminishment, in light of that more common usage of the word "reduce", which used to be much more general, but it does mean both things. The cancelling is the act of removing equal terms in the numerator and denominator, but the process itself, which the article lecnac purports to describe, is reducing. More commonly, this is called 'finding the LCD' (lowest common denominator) of arithmetic terms, and that terminology is much more descriptive. Lecnac is a silly term that I hope is removed from all use in the world, forthwith. - Centrx 20:34, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * I am a Deputy Headteacher of a British School. I have used the word 'lecnac' to teach several classes the above concept. It was recommended to me by another teacher who, I believe, had originally picked it up from Mathsphere a few years ago. I have never used Mathsphere but have used the word. I can name at least 120 children who have used the word to explain the process. In fact, the previous writer may like to have it explained in a bit more detail as they seem to have got the wrong end of the stick- perhaps we should make the original article longer just to make certain it's clear? Lecnac is, in fact, the opposite of reducing. Not so silly when you are trying to explain the concept to a group of ten year olds.     Natasha
 * As I said, the word reduce does mean "To change (a number or quantity) from one denomination into or to another", or "To change (a quantity, figure, etc.) into or to a different form", or "To bring (into or) to a certain form or character". Also "to bring (a thing, institution, etc.) back to a former state" or "restore", which is in the vein of reversing a cancelling. It commonly conveys a suggestion of diminishment, as resulting either in a smaller number or in one composed of smaller units, but this is not its exclusive definition. Because of this common usage, using reduce as encompassing both diminishment and expansion of numerals would not be useful, but the word exists and is correct. I do not misunderstand reduction. The article is already woefully long-winded, and is much more appropriate in the article on fractions, or even one on cancelling or reducing, as it is quite merely an inverse procedure that need no more than a couple of sentences if it is in a place where it is apposite to terms and concepts elsewhere described in a single article of the larger concept. - Centrx 00:30, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

(i) I gave the examples of multiplication/division and differentiation/integration to illustrate the inverse nature of operations in mathematics and how important it is to have an inverse operation when appropriate. Whilst it is true that one use of integration is to find the area under a graph, this is by no means the only use. It is used to find the function that gives rise to a differentiated function (integrating a velocity function gives a function that describes acceleration, for instance). In any case, when finding an area, it is only when one substitutes in the numbers defining the range of the area that the area is actually determined numerically. It is still necessary to find the integrated function first. (ii) Centrx makes the point that the value of a fraction is not changed when it is cancelled or lacnaced. This is so, of course, but this is not unusual in mathematics. Functions can be expanded and factorised without changing their value. Eg. 3x(2y + 7) = 6xy + 21x and 6xy + 21x = 3x(2y + 7). We still need the terms expand and factorise to describe them (imagine trying to teach these concepts without these terms!). (iii) Is there a better term that already exists to describe this process as Centrx wishes? I wish there were such a term. I have taught mathematics for over 30 years and have never come across such a term, which is why I am so keen to have lecnacing recognised (I wish I had thought of it myself!). (iv) To say that "Lecnac is a silly term that I hope is removed from all use in the world, forthwith" is, it must be said, highly subjective. We can all point to words or expressions in our language that we do not like or think are silly, but one man's meat is another man's poison. Subjective argument of this type is surely not relevant to the construction of an authoritative encyclopedia. Andrewcairnes.
 * A couple of points in response to Centrx.
 * Tentative keep. In North America, the term "reduce" is much more common, but not only would "ecuder" truly be a neologism, it would be a particularly clumsy one. A couple of contributors to this discussion have noted that there had previously been no complementary term. As a math teacher myself for some years, working with precisely this set of skills, I will vouch for that as well. My own invented term for the inverse of "reduce" was "expand". The fact that "lecnac" has been around for half a decade and is seeing non-miniscule use in British schools is good enough reason to keep this article. Denn i  23:45, 2004 Jun 14 (UTC)


 * You are correct, my frustrated last sentence was more of a conclusion and clearly my own POV and should not be a justification for any decision.


 * My point about multiplication, integration, etc. was that they are operations unlike cancelling and "lecnacking". The latter do not alter the number, they change the representation and are as much a mathematical operation as representing a number in binary, Roman numerals, or by using strikes in unary notation.


 * I do not advocate exclusion of the concept, but it does not need its own article. It is intertwined inextractably with the concept of fractions and belongs in the article about fractions. I will soon add this if it is not done by others, and then the page lecnac should be removed. If you do not agree, there is still no way in the world it should have a page unique from "cancel" or "reduce" as they are quite merely inverse concepts.


 * Anyway, reducing fractions is a much less complex and and less useful process than factorization, which is used elsewhere in mathematics and for practical applications. Indeed, cancelling and "lecnacking" are reducible to the more fundamental and profitable mathematical concepts of factorization, division, and identity. It is nothing more than an elimination of the identical, factored terms in a division.

This discussion is now closed.

RESULT: Keep. DJ Clayworth 17:44, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)