malice of forethought

[JAMES A. LANDAU Netscape. Just the Net You Need.]

This is from a geometry proof posted on the philomathes mailing list (the successor to the late and lamented Historia Matematica list).

"Draw a (horizontal) line segment AB of length a+b,
and let A' be the point where AA'=a and A'B=b (my notation may seem
strange, but is done with malice of forethought)."

I don’t know if this be an eggcorn or a deliberate play on words.


           James A. Landau
           test engineer
           Northrop-Grumman Information Technology
           8025 Black Horse Pike, Suite 300
           West Atlantic City NJ 08232 USA
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