A Few Good Words?

"You can't handle the truth" ... Perhaps one of the most iconic movie lines ever delivered on screen by the infamous Jack Nicholson to the sharp dressed attorney played by Tom Cruise in "A Few Good Men".

Are we silently replaying that scene in classrooms in an effort to simplify math?  Is the absence of precise academic language because we don't believe our students can handle the truth? There are times when the terms "roots, solutions, zeroes, and x-intercepts" are used interchangeably as if they all mean the same thing.  But do they?  A quick Google search reveals some nuances to those terms that would indicate they are not all the same.  Do we fail to shed light because we believe a half truth is less confusing than the whole truth?  Is it just not that important?  What other academic words do we bypass because they contain too many syllables?  Or the ones we can replace with simpler, more "descriptive" words.   What about the word we can define less precisely?  It serves the immediate need but does not build the conceptual base required for next year.  


Let's face it ... Math has a rich vocabulary.  It is a needed vocabulary that can and should be handled.  So let's challenge each other to use the vocabulary .... The complete and precise language of math.  May our plea be that of Tom Cruise, "I want the truth".