But in this case, -ffast-math actually results in slower math, so the flag is badly named. Naming things is important (and hard). The naive expectation of a flag named -ffast-math is that the math should never be slower, sometimes be faster, and potentially less accurate and/or error prone. The fact that it can also be sometimes slower means the flag really should be named -fdifferent-math or (uncharitably) -funreliable-math.