>>>>>>>It's anyone's guess whether the user will or will not know what a specific word means, but my bet would be that it's more likely that the average human (not programmer) will know what "negative" means than what >= 0 means.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>"Greater than or equal to zero" is simpler vocabulary than "negative"
>>>>>
>>>>>If that works for you, Mike, enjoy it!
>>>>
>>>>I find no joy in the idea that my users occupy the section of spectrum between "illiterate" and "morons". Unless it pays reeeeeally well.
>>>
>>>I haven't met any users who aren't pretty sharp in a long, long time.
>>
>>But did you check whether they knew what "negative number" means?
>
>Nope. They'd laugh at me.

So would mine... well, most of them. The others would probably know what it is, if not all the implications, and how to operate them.

And yet we seem to have a party here which thinks "must not be negative" sounds too complicated to their users. Is it that you and I are just lucky, or what?

BTW, the bosnian explanation of negative numbers: "There are three people in the elevator; eight people exit and now it takes five people to enter the elevator to make it empty".