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I know the difference between parameter and argument.

  1. Parameter is variable in the declaration of function.

  2. Argument is the actual value of this variable that gets passed to function.

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From the dictionary, argument means "a discussion or debate in which a number of people put forward different or opposing opinions".

It's very hard for me to bridge "debate"/disagree to value of parameters (I am not a English native speaker). Are they related? In computer science, why did people choose "argument" as the term to describe the value of parameter?

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  1. What's the difference between an argument and a parameter?
  2. Wikipedia: Parameter (Computer Science)
jonrsharpe
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Ryan Lyu
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    `From the dictionary, argument means a discussion or debate in which a number of people put forward different or opposing opinions.` - please see https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/argument. – GSerg Oct 31 '18 at 07:44
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    It's coming from the mathematic and not from the linguistic. – the hand of NOD Oct 31 '18 at 08:11
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    https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/144141/what-is-the-sense-of-using-word-argument-for-inputs-of-a-function – BoltClock Oct 31 '18 at 08:21
  • There is more than one meaning of *argument*: **2** a reason or set of reasons given in support of an idea, action or theory: *"there is a strong argument for submitting a formal appeal"* | [with clause] : *"he rejected the argument that keeping the facility would be costly."* – That is pretty close to the use of *passing an argument to a function.* – deceze Nov 02 '18 at 09:34

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Argument has been used in that sense as a technical term in English in the fields of astronomy and mathematics for 600 years, and later also in logic and computer science. But as a technical sense, it may well be missing from your L2 dictionary.

You are asking what the relationship is between that sense and the everyday sense of loud disagreement. That is a question about etymology, not computing. Most native English speakers will be unlikely to know the answer, without first consulting a historical dictionary of English. And even then, the big OED doesn't yield a very clear-cut answer.

It is all so very long ago that it is hard to tell.

BoarGules
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