If this is all it takes to turn people away, then I would say that the problem is that those people have an irrational fear of mathematics. At that level, it's

If this is all it takes to turn people away, then I would say that the problem is that those people have an irrational fear of mathematics. At that level, it's not about having a tool that is too abstract or difficult, or not being gifted at abstract thinking; it's about those people having a conditioned knee-jerk reaction to math-sounding things. Mathematics is hard, at least for me, but I have accepted that I have to get over my preconceived notions and at least try to look beyond the jargon. And these are mere names, not "let's cook up an ad-hoc notation and heavily overload and abuse it in places because 'the meaning is obvious from the context'...". this is only a question about choosing name A, or name B. I can't imagine it will get any harder by choosing either of them. At least Haskell clearly states, with it's esoteric naming; "what you are about to get into is quite strange, and quite different from anything you've probably encountered in programming before." And if they can't look beyond scary-sounding words, maybe that kind of programming is not for them - and in that case, it's good that they found out straight away - or maybe they need to work on their own phobias.