It is quite important from the outset to tell students that Mathematics employs its own language wherein many well known words acquire a meaning different from what one might expect. The advice is good and applies to all other sciences and fields of human endeavor. However, a few points in the article have left me confused. The number story. After many years of teaching Mathematics the author finally realized that an obnoxious student of his who claimed that 0 is not a number was actually right.
None is the plain English meaning.
Mathematics has been mentioned only once. It would be a relief to learn that the intention of the article was to sum up a part of the math folklore that has to do with math as a language. I read and reread the article several times. Some juxtapositions are indeed funny, but on the whole the article s tone is quite apologetic. Secondly, I wonder what the author may think of programming languages.