Bloomfield was a distingished American pioneer in linguistics, who left a profound influence on the field.

I argue that his comment -- "Mathematics is language at its best." -- has the relativity of the verse I wrote about "Mathematics". When the language of math is good, it is very, very good. But when it is bad, it is horrid.

The names of the number systems studied by students provide glaring examples:

• "natural numbers" (are the other numbers unnatural? -- kinky!);
• "fractions" (can't these broken numbers be splinted?);
• "real numbers" (what if you met one of these in a real world dark alley?);
• "imaginary numbers" (do you meet these in a day dream or a night dream?
• "complex numbers" (written in a grammatically compound form).

And "variable" (for the map or output of a function -- PL functand), sends mathematics into physics.

Such language is as unfortunate as the continuance in Astronomy of "sunrise, sunset", as if astronomers still accept the Ptolemaic model wherein the sun goes around the earth.