And yet these same students have enough experience to know that this must be an inverse relationship. And these same students know the meanings of pressure and moles. Because mathematical sentences are part of an esoteric language which is not meant to be understood in the ways of English. This type of experience brings the language of mathematics out of the wilderness and into the students' lives.
Most students can see that mathematics is an accessible language after all.
Well chemistry depends heavily upon the language of mathematics. And chemistry is generally the high school precursor to physics which depends upon mathematics even more. When an entire class which is involved and focused sits there and doesn't object when you state an absurdity, then there is something very wrong which needs attention. The students who understood Boyle's Law discovered that they didn't really understand it after all. 2 V 2 and the entire class will accept that as a sufficient response.