An Inherent Rhetoric of Positive Number and Negative One in Accounting

Abstract

In an accounting calculation of profit and loss, the result must be negative when the business suffers a loss caused by business. Negative number is indispensable for accounting calculation. However, negative number has never been used in accounting history. The reason is that merchants have made use of positive number as a kind of metaphor instead of negative one that does not exist and cannot be looked. Such a metaphor is a means to recognize something difficult to understand. And some modern theories of accounting are based on the rhetoric.