Are words sometimes better than formulae?

If, 50 years ago, you had asked a pupil in the UK what Pythagoras’ Theorem was, they might have answered: “The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides”. Today, if you asked a pupil that same question, I think they would almost certainly say, “a squared plus b squared equals c squared”. It’s interesting to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each of these responses. The first response is verbal; the second is symbolic. And, in the history of mathematics, people wrote formulae in words for a long time. Have we lost something by having pupils become ‘too symbolic, too soon’?