[Haskell-cafe] why the name lambda calculus?

[Dominic Mulligan]

On Wed, 2011-08-24 at 14:01 +0100, Tony Finch wrote:
> Ezra Cooper <ezra at ezrakilty.net> wrote:
> >
> > I believe this to be a general trait of things described as
> > "calculi"--that they have some form of name-binders, but I have never
> > seen that observation written down.
> 
> Combinator calculi are a counter-example.

As is the propositional calculus.  I seem to remember Joe Wells once
asking Wilfrid Hodges what he thought the definition of a calculus was.
He didn't provide a convincing definition.