It’s entirely unambiguous due to the parenthesis.
I don’t think the rest of your argument actually makes sense.
There is no sleight of hand required. The original argument is entirely related to having unary minus and binary minus which are different operators conceptually have similar precedence as being less surprising.
When you try to swap in the unary operator without that to make it “less surprising”, you get 9.
Precisely what you said was wrong about the unwary operator (in Excel).
> The original argument is entirely related to having unary minus and binary minus which are different operators conceptually have similar precedence as being less surprising.
And no, you don’t get 9 when you swap the unary operator. That’s the whole point and why it’s surprising that Excel did reverse the precedence for implementation easiness.
You said that “-3” = “0-3”.
So we have “-3^2” is “(0-3)^2” is 9. Agreeing with -3^2 = 9.
You’re performing a sleight of hand when you define “-3” to be “0-3”, but move the parenthesis to get your second equation. You have to insert your definition as a single term inside parenthesis — you can’t simply remove them to change association (as you have done). That’s against the rules.
So if you think “-3” is “0-3”, then you should agree the answer is 9.