In the rhetorical stage of mathematical notation, calculations were described purely using words rather than symbols.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by multiple independent sources including Wikipedia articles on timeline of mathematics, history of mathematical notation, history of algebra, and cut-the-knot.org, all consistently describing the rhetorical stage as word-based calculation without symbols. [tier=unverified indep_score=0.375 clusters=1 claim_tier=everyday] [harvest 2026-09-15: +4 source(s) on new hosts; tier unverified->gold indep=0.99 clusters=5] [kind-backfill 2026-09-15: kind=empirical eligibility=high]
Sources
- Timeline of mathematics (wikipedia)
- https://www.cut-the-knot.org/language/symb.shtml (corroboration)
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/1807.11704 (corroboration)
- https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~cherlin/History/Papers2002/vieta.html (corroboration)
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2000.tb17262.x (corroboration)
- https://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/emt668/emt668.student.folders/Hix/EMT635/Alg.rhet.timeline.html (corroboration)