Contest of the Day: Trig Functions

ziggy on 2004-02-11T22:44:44

Back in my trig class, mumble years ago, we had an extra credit question on a test: identify as many imaginary trigonometric functions as you can. Each function, and its co-function, should be real words in some language.

Examples: opt / co-opt, de / code, rect / correct.

How many can you name? One point per pair.

Extra points if you come up with a humorous definition for the pair of functions. No groaners.


Well...

Mr. Muskrat on 2004-02-11T23:05:45

I'm not a trig guy so no definitions but I was able to come up with a few possibilities.

cuss/discuss
fresh/refresh
course/concourse/discourse/recourse

Re:Well...

Theory on 2004-02-11T23:10:39

You forgot "intercourse".

David

Re:Well...

ziggy on 2004-02-11T23:18:20

Hm. Maybe I should have given the basic trigonometric functions as examples:
sine    cosine
tangent cotangent
secant  cosecant
Each function (sine, tangent, secant) has a co-function (cosine, cotangent, cosecant). So the point is to find word pairs that are roughly xyz/coxyz.

Like in / coin. ;-)

Inverse functions are also available

kag on 2004-02-12T00:03:55

tangent/arctangent

So: hive/archive

D'oh!

Mr. Muskrat on 2004-02-11T23:33:53

I was not aware that all trig functions followed the "co rule" as in sine & cosine.

So change my "entries" to:
relation/correlation
respond/correspond
valent/covalent
variant/covariant

These are the words that sounded somewhat trig-like.

How about ...

grantm on 2004-02-12T03:14:44

bra/cobra - functions defining two adjacent curves

ding/coding - functions defining bell curves

lander/colander - functions defining a trajectory towards the surface of the moon

median/comedian - functions for determining the suitability of a joke in polite company (ie: is it over the line)

<guilty-secret-mode sin="!perl">
  for w in `cat /usr/share/dict/words`; do grep "^co$w\$" /usr/share/dict/words; done
</guilty-secret-mode>