2003-05-03 16:31:49, "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@...> wrote:

>Nicholas Bodley wrote:

>> "hemiola" referred originally to red (color of blood) markup.
>
>No connection. It's from _hemi_ '1/2' and the etymology is '1 1/2'.

Good. Thanks! Reminds me immediately of the British "hemidemisemiquaver",
a very-short musical note, maybe a 64th.
It's interesting that binary fractions are the basis of both subdivided inches and
musical note durations. Halving is pretty basic, but such intimate (although little-
realized) connection with the binary number system is not usually recognized.
For some reason, modern computer science seems to work only with
binary/hexadecimal integers, not fractions.

--
Nicholas Bodley |@| Waltham, Mass.
Opera browser fan/user