On Words and Symbols

College catalogs, not the most edifying reading available on most campuses, do occasionally reflect trends that signal real events. One cannot help but notice these days that many departments that formerly bore the succinct title Mathematics are now encumbered with Mathematical Sciences, lvlathematics and Computer Science, or Mathematical, Computing, Statistical and Information Sciences. Others have been balkanized into frequently quarreling Departments of Pure Mathematics, of Applied Mathematics, of Statistics, of Operations Research, of Computer Science.