By now, Weird Al's "Word Crimes" video has travelled, well, probably mostly around the Facebook and Twitter world. The first time I saw it, I thought it was catchy, but mostly ridiculous. I must confess, though, that it has grown on me and I find myself singing it to myself at random times. "Just now, you said, you literally couldn't get out of bed....". Anyway, I am so with him on this topic. I am that person that points out spelling mistakes on signs, in newspapers, in books and so on and so forth. I am that person. It drives other people crazy.
Recently, I have begun thinking about 'word crimes' in other areas. Well, okay, in mathematical areas. Because there certainly are word crimes in math. But for some reason, people seem to gloss over them. It doesn't seem to irk people the same way, as say, when people use the wrong version of to, or you're or who just throw apostrophes around.
For example, timesing. I mean, is that even really a word? And yet I hear kids use it all the time.
"Well, you have to times 4 and 5 to 20."
"Times?"
"Yah, you know...the X".
"Oh, you mean multiply."
"Yah, I guess. Multiply."
How about cross multiply? Okay, so this in itself is not a word crime. There is a mathematical operation that is often referred to as cross-multiplication. The issue for me is that kids just use it without even knowing what they are really doing, or without even knowing how to actually do it. "So, to get the x, I just cross multiplied". And even there: "To get the x..." How about, "to solve for x?"
This might seem nit-picky, or even bordering on insanity, but the truth of the matter is that we don't put the same emphasis on written communication in mathematics as we do in other curriculum areas. And the truth of the matter is, it is just as important. Our students need to be able to write about their mathematics coherently. Just as we learn to write, we write to learn. The writing in our mathematics classrooms is no different.
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