Say it in English grammar “GREATER than” means greater number first. And vice versa.
How does this help me remember which symbol means greater than and which one means less than?
The bigger side of the symbol is greater. The small side is less.
We read left to right.
That make sense?
No, sorry, not at all. You just said 2 true things that i agree with. I just fail to see the connection. How does reading left to right help me remember that the bigger side is greater? You didn’t even mention the important part in the first comment as if it is implied by left to right reading. I’m clearly missing something that seems obvious to you
I never understood why so many people seemingly struggle with these signs to the point they need a mnemonic. The big side points to the big number and the small side to the small one. What even is there to remember?
As a kid I saw it as an arrow pointing, it points to the small number. That’s how I remembered it. I can now understand it ‘facing’ the big number but it was never pointing any direction other than the point, which is to the smaller one. Now I understand it eats the bigger one but it took awhile to see it as anything but an arrow point, if they drew them with teeth I’d have understood the eating better as a kid but I don’t think any teacher did that. I never had trouble understanding overall so wasn’t an issue.
Yeah, the symbol is the mnemonic. What does the crocodile even explain? Why doesn’t the bigger number eat the smaller numbers?
Yeah the worst part about mnemonics like this is that its easy to think to yourself “crap, does the crocodile eat the bigger number or the smaller number?”
Never been a fan of mnemonics that can be easily flipped because my brain loves to troll me. When I noticed/heard larger side larger number, this was the only way I ever saw it again.
Technically. That’s not the point, though. The symbol itself has a built in mnemonic; it’s designed so you can’t forget what it means. If you wanna be pedantic, which, fair enough, we’re talking about math notation after all, add “different” before “mnemonic” in the original comment and the point still stands.
some ppl shouldn’t have degrees
Indicative of the fact this approach is counterintuitive to our thinking, but we’re too stupid to adopt a new way to show it.
“Points at the smaller thing”
Every time I watch a student stall out on inequalities I ask “it’s the crocodile isn’t it?”. Without fail, they’ve got confused by it and as soon as they hear “points at the smaller thing” they have no issues.
