>>58
Wrong again. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXY, while it is not a symbol itself, is an expression. An expression is a finite sequence of symbols. A symbol is anything within the set of a formal language called its alphabet. Whereas all of those letters are symbol
The reason why semantics has much place in mathematics is because the symbols of formal languages form a finitary system, and makes concrete representations of abstract things. The syntatic part of mathematics also has its place, but semantic implication is more important by far than syntatic implication. A defined symbol is a representation of an expression or another symbol, but is not itself a part of the alphabet, and by consequence is not a symbol itself.
You would know all this if you had taken a course on mathematical logic. All this comes straight from my mathematical logic textbook.
What I was saying was that .999... is not a real number, but rather a finite string of defined symbols of "." followed by "9," "9," "9," "." "." and finally, "."
Also a source for information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_language