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by spion 3942 days ago
> It's relatively common to refer to the underlying set as a monoid (or whatever structure you're talking about) if it's clear from the context what the operations are, though.

Relatively common even outside Haskell?

1 comments

> Relatively common even outside Haskell?

It's common throughout mathematics. So common, in fact, that there's even a wikipedia article on the phenomenon[0].

“Common examples occur when speaking of compound mathematical objects. […] Similarly, one often refers to a group (G, \star) as simply G when the group operation is clear from context.”

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abuse_of_notation

Fair enough. But I don't think its surprising that it may lead to confusion when beginners study the subject.