I first encountered it about 60 years ago, in fifth grade. Our textbook said, "PI is about 3.1416 or 22/7." Our teacher insisted that that sentence meant "PI is about 3.1416, or exactly 22/7." I argued it. I pointed out that 22/7 was about 3.1429, and "why would they say 'about 3.1416' instead of 'about 3.1429' if it were actually 22/7?" I got sent to the principal's office. My father, who COULD recite a dozen digits of PI gave me a hard time about "staying out of trouble".
On Wed, 9 Jan 2019, Tony Duell wrote:
Nice to know that clueless schoolteachers are not limited to the UK. I had my fair share of them <mumble> years ago...
They have not been limited to the UK for more than half aa millenium. USA caught up many hundreds of years ago.
