Specialized Language of Mathematics

The High School Publishers’ Criteria for the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics says that materials aligned with CCSSM should emphasize mathematical reasoning by “explicitly attending to the specialized language of mathematics.”

I am greatly concerned by this, as there is much confusion about many of the most important words in mathematics.

Words like dodecagon…

…or coordinate axes…

…or hypotenuse…

…or quartiles…

…or spheroid…

The Common Core mathematics glossary contains 52 terms, yet none of the five listed above are on that list. I certainly hope the glossary committee will consider adding some of them.