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Words you can write on a calculator | Mathematics

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Words you can write on a calculator

If you were ever bored enough in a maths class to turn a number on your calculator into a word you may have only been scraping the surface. There is much more to this art than meets the eye

I own a Casio fx-85gt plus. It can perform 260 functions in less than a second, it can tell me when I've got a recurring decimal and it has a slide-on protective cover so that the buttons don't get pressed when it's in my bag. And even if the buttons do get pressed, I've got two-way power – solar and battery – so I'm sorted.

But as soon as I bought it I was disappointed. If I happened to be bored in a maths class, typed out 0.1134, turned my calculator upside down and slid it across to a friend I wouldn't get so much as a smile. The numbers look too much like normal typeface. 

Typeface on a modern calculator Photograph: Guardian

It's a shame because this calculator, now recommended for GCSE and A/AS levels in most British schools is putting a knife into an age-old art form: the calculated insult.

Calculator spelling is known as 'beghilos' because most words have to use those letters. Hoping for a renaissance, we've dredged out a filthy old calculator and provided some reminders of this language's unique vocabulary. 

Try to decipher them and tell us which ones we've missed in the comments below…

This one's a classic… Photograph: Guardian
…but is also easily alterable Photograph: Calculated words
Having a bad day at work? Let a colleague know how you feel about the office using a messaging format that will disappear without a trace as soon as you hit AC. Try doing the same with email. It doesn't work Photograph: Guardian
Another one for the 'random and/or leery' category Photograph: Guardian
Rather than having an emotional outburst, try saying how you feel with a calculator Photograph: Guardian
Offensive, yet somehow less so in digits? Photograph: Guardian
An instruction for the modern kids Photograph: Guardian
It might sound irrelevant but show it to a woman with this name and she'll go wild with excitement Photograph: Guardian

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