[Vocabulary] Is it pre-calculus, precalculus, or pre calculus?

[Jon Bass]

I just started classes in US, and I am a bit confused on the name of one of my math class. My teacher calls it pre-calculus, but when I look online, I see precalculus, and others.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/classroom/classes/Pre-Calculus.html
https://www.studypug.com/pre-calculus
https://www.khanacademy.org/math/precalculus

what's the correct way to call / spell this course?

 

[GoesStation]

I would have written pre-calculus. However, hyphenated compound nouns tend to lose the hyphen and become single words. This happens quickly with frequently-used words and is encouraged by some style guides.

The version with a space just looks wrong to me.

 

[bubbha]

I prefer "pre-calculus", but "precalculus" is also acceptable. I would say "no" to "pre calculus".

If it's the name of the course you're taking, use the official spelling used by your university (check the course catalog).

 

[GoesStation]

Precisely. Why even bother to ask?

Maybe because of healthy intellectual curiosity.

 

[Jon Bass]

Incidentally, why do you care? Are you more interested in the name of the subject or the subject itself? I think you should start preparing and forget the trivia. It's the material that should garner your attention.

Thanks for your feedback. Perhaps it's an OCD thing - if you attend the class 3 times a week, and study for it all the time (precalc is not my strongest course), and you see all the variants every single time, it's kind of driving me up the wall. But perhaps it's the beauty of the english language, at the end of the day, it gets the job done, and that's all it matters.

 

[Rover_KE]

But perhaps it's the beauty of the english language, at the end of the day, it gets the job done, and that's all it matters.

Most of us here are OCD about capitalising 'English' every time we write it.:roll: