Well, Spud the Masked Mathematician, is here today to break the rules, to teach you the secret handshake, and let you in on all the fun stuff that's been going on behind the curtain. It's a famous, very funny, vaudeville skit that's based on Abbott and Costello misunderstanding each other. They think they're speaking the same language, but you can almost see their words flying past each other, never quite meeting in the middle. When this happens in mathematics, it's not nearly so funny. Mathematicians have a terrible habit.
All mathematicians share one particular bad habit.
In the library you will learn that I'm saying that the intersection of the set of bad habits of each mathematician is non-empty. Hey, give me a minute, okay. By now you know I like to sneak up on important ideas gradually. Think about this. When the biologists start to talk about axial asymmetry among invertebrates, at least you know right away where all the tricky words are.