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Re: What's a 9,11,12,etc-sided figure called?
Posted:
Aug 25, 1997 10:54 AM
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On 24 Aug 1997, J. Stefanek wrote:
> What is a 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15-sided figure called?
>
> After octagon (8-sided), I'm at a loss.
>
> Post or E-mail reply,
>
> Thanks.
>
The proper terms are
enneagon, hendecagon, dodecagon, triskaidecagon, tetrakaidecagon,
and pentekaidecagon, froming by combining the Greek names for the
corrsponding numbers with "gon", meaning "angle", which is a
shortened form of the Greek word "gonu", meaning "knee". It's a nice
fact that the Greek, Latin, French, German, and English words for
knee, namely gonu genu genu Knee knee , are all
essentially the same. However the pronunciation has changed, the initial
hard g of the Greek and Latin forms becoming soft g in French, and hard
k in German and English, and the n being no longer pronounced in English.
John Conway
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