Yes, sum(whatever) is fine. What is &quot;whatever&quot;? If it&#x27;s the common case of two operands, then I don&#x27;t think you&#x27;re making a point against a + b.<p>And you don&#x27;t think (sum (mul a (minus b c)) d), or (+ (* a (- b c)) d) for that matter, is more readable than a * (b-c) + d, do you?<p>&gt; There are in fact, a lot of uses of sums and products, so after a while, they are pretty naturally.<p>I think you are talking about summing up a collection (like, an array, a matrix, etc.) as opposed to building an expression tree. Of course, sum(myIntList) is just fine. That&#x27;s a whole different story.<p>There are also the rare cases where you have to sum, like 6 integers. (sum a b c d e f) might not be worse than a + b + c + d + e + f. But that&#x27;s by far not the common case in most problem domains. The common case is like a*(b-c) + d.