Isn't "transitive" the wrong word?

[Jason House]

Janice Caron Wrote:

> Sorry to go all grammar/mathematics nit-picky, but isn't "transitive"
> completely the wrong word?
> 
> The word "transitive" applies to binary relations, like less-than. A
> relation R is transitive if
> 
>     (a R b) and (b R c) implies (a R c)
> 
> For example, less-than is transitive, because
> 
>     (a < b) and (b < c) implies (a < c)
> 
> But the word "transitive" has no meaning when applied to a unary type
> constructor like const().
> 
> No, methinks the word you're looking for here is RECURSIVE. Const in D
> is recursive, not transitive.
> 
> Should we change all the documention, or is this some new definition
> of "transitive" which is in common use in some field of which I am
> unaware?

If we had an operator for "contains" or "is accessible from", and an operator for const, I'd say "is accessible from" is transitive and const is distributive.