I am serious. And it's not arbitrary - I would like the idea to change so that the basic operations are definite and written down. I'm not kidding about being a literalist either - IOW's if there should be a parenthesis then it should be there. I see the idea that if a parenthesis is not there you still can
perform the operation as if it was there based on a rule to be arbitrary unto itself.
The idea that you follow PEMDAS excludes people who don't know the operational rule - and adds to the confusion of solving a basic calculation.
As it is there we now have a thread with 300 people posting 5 different answers. if the 'P' of PEMDAS was mandatory to compute a operation the
answer would be simple and a moot point.
As for the rest of the mnemonic device used - it is not arbitrary IMO.
i see what you mean and don't necessarily disagree on the principle, but these are universally used conventions, even in countries where it's not spelle out by an acronym.
the easiest way to have unambiguos operations would be to drop every priority and have only two 'rules' do define order of operations: left to right and parenthesis.
so the original
5+5+5-5+5+5-5+5*0
should be written
5+5+5-5+5+5-5+(5*0) to become universally unambiguous.
but if you think about it, that is already what it is, and the parentheses in a sense were there and then became "implied" in multiplication and division to allow for more rapid and clearer notations.
it's the same reason we write 2y instead than 2*y, or 2(x+y) instead of 2*(x+y), or -(x+1) instead of -1*(x+1), because it makes it easier and quicker.
if we where to use parenthesis every time we have a multiplications and divisions, it would become more confusing (and very quickly), not less confusing, because you'd have parentheses everywhere to match up.