Part of the reason is that most variables do not have much meaning. What name do you ascribe to "a continuous function from R to R"? Another detail is that yo

Part of the reason is that most variables do not have much meaning. What name do you ascribe to "a continuous function from R to R"? Another detail is that you are rarely juggling more than 10 or so names at once. A lot of math at a higher level becomes abstract enough to where elements no longer have a concrete meaning. What does the x in integral(f(x)dx) mean? It's more about some things being harder to write in point free style rather than anything else. This is perhaps why it's common to have short names for arguments in functional languages as well.