this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2025
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PEMDAS bitches.
It's interesting that you can somewhat tell where you are from based on this, I learned it as BODMAS
O - oxponent?
Orders.
Brackets, Orders (powers and roots), Division, Multiplication, Addition, and Subtraction
This is fucking so many people over... It should be limited - like Orders - to only Multiplication and Addition.
Because division is the same operation as multiplication, and subtraction is the same operation as addition, and they have the same "weight" in the order of operations (meaning, you do them left-to-right).
Another commenter mentioned something similar, how they're interchangeable, but I'm not sure why you say it's fucking people over.
Because the people who learn "DM" or "MD" then spend hours online arguing that you must do one before the other.
People do be arguing, lol
Did you mean MD and DM?
Yeyeye, sorry, long day.
I learned BODMAS too! It seems BIDMAS is another one (British I think), PEMDAS is the weird American one, BEDMAS is a thing too. You're able to vary the first letter (parenthesis or brackets), second letter (indices/exponent/"order" or "operation"), and the order of multiplication/division (MS or SM) and addition/SUBTRACTION (AD or DA)
Very interesting indeed.
We need a super position of all of them.
Where are pemdas and bodmas users from?
Pemdas, USA. Bodmas, UK.
BEDMAS, Canada
I think most former British colonies use BODMAS
But the USA seems to use PEMDAS? I'm confused now...
They mean Commonwealth countries more precisely
Yeah, my bad
It talks about it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_operations#Mnemonics
I never ran into PEMDAS while growing up, in Sweden I've always been taught of it as the following order of operations:
Technically roots are a form of exponent, just fractional (square root is power of 1/2, for instance). I can see how it could be easier to conceptualize when you break it down like that though. Neat to see the differences compared to the US breakdown :)
Technically we go for 2. Powers & Roots, I just didn't want to break the PEMDAS when comparing. :)
e: Wanted to see if this is a thing in English.
That's PEMDAS...
They aren't using the same words so the shorthand (if they have one) is different. I don't think we had a shorthand for it either, we just learned it.
And we learned them in groups numbered like the Swedes
Okay then, but, fun story, the BODMAS they're talking about is also just PEMDAS using different words and a different listed order for multiplication/division, with the understanding that it's more properly PE(MD)(AS)
The order of operations is the important bit and everyone learns it that way. What causes the arguments is when dummies online forget that M+D or A+S can theoretically be done properly in any order and that part is a matter of preference.
The disadvantage of a shorthand compared to just a numbered list might be that people think it's strictly one after the another instead of groups
Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally... bitches.