- published: 08 May 2016
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The plus and minus signs (+ and −) are mathematical symbols used to represent the notions of positive and negative as well as the operations of addition and subtraction. Their use has been extended to many other meanings, more or less analogous. Plus and minus are Latin terms meaning "more" and "less", respectively.
Though the signs now seem as familiar as the alphabet or the Hindu-Arabic numerals, they are not of great antiquity. The Egyptian hieroglyphic sign for addition, for example, resembled a pair of legs walking in the direction in which the text was written (Egyptian could be written either from right to left or left to right), with the reverse sign indicating subtraction:[citation needed]
In Europe in the early 15th century the letters "P" and "M" were generally used. The symbols (P with line p̄ for piú, i.e., plus, and M with line m̄ for meno, i.e., minus) appeared for the first time in Luca Pacioli’s mathematics compendium, Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalità, first printed and published in Venice in 1494. The + is a simplification of the Latin "et" (comparable to the ampersand &).[citation needed] The − may be derived from a tilde written over m when used to indicate subtraction; or it may come from a shorthand version of the letter m itself.[citation needed] In his 1489 treatise Johannes Widmann referred to the symbols − and + as minus and mer (Modern German mehr; "more"): "das − ist, das ist minus, und das + ist das mer".
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You can search for a lifetime for the maning of one word,
If you were to pick one word, that word should be "free".
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But it hides from the hardened,
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From a senseless kill...
And you must find meaning in things you've been ignoring
And you will learn lessons that help a soul to be free.
There is talk of compassion
But it hides from the hardened,
And it runs like a quarry
From a senseless kill...
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You can search for a lifetime for the meaning of one word
If you were to pick one word, that word should be "free".