Proposal: people prefer “mantissa” because it abbreviates better than “significand” (any truncation of which collides with “sign”). But “mantissa” is formally incorrect, since it already has a different meaning. So we should use “magnificand” instead.

- code that uses (s,e,m) still makes sense
- it’s the thing that is magnified by the exponent—the magnificand
- magnificent

@steve I'm perfectly fine with just redefining mantissa to match actual usage. Call me a heretic. It's far less offensive than redefining crypto. 🤷
@dalias I mean, sure, but magnificand is actually a better word for it anyway, so
@steve I'm confused. To me, magnificand would specify the magnitude, i.e. denote the exponent.