Linguistic Trigonometry

[DrD]

The first time, (that I remember seeing), arc-functions called inverse functions, (with the -1 exponent), was on early T.I. calcs. During my basic education classes I remember them referred to as, "arcsin, arccos," etc.

Arc notation, where the angle's function value comes from the arc drawn on the unit circle, seemed more natural to "say," rather than "inverse", which seemed more like a reciprocal thing, in general. In higher education, I mostly encountered them as inverse functions, (instead of arc), which sounded sort of peculiar to me. (Math has always been like a foreign language to me, anyway, so it's not too surprising that I would have this sort of 'dialect' reaction, I guess!).

Thank you, all, for the discussion!

-Dale-