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Shreevatsa R@svat@mathstodon.xyz

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Shreevatsa R@svat@mathstodon.xyz (2026-08-16 03:09:23)
I went to school in India, and we learned the multiplication tables with a chant that involved a postfix operator called "zaar":

two one zaar two
two two zaar four
two three zaar six
two four zaar eight
two five zaar ten
two six zaar twelve
…

We just accepted such a postfix operator as the most natural thing, and freely used it when talking to each other: “what is seven six zaar?” (42)

Some of us were adults before realizing (and some probably never realizing) that these “tables” we all sang as children had probably started as:

two ones are two
two twos are four
…