Denominator

Been some discussion lately in class and during our readings at GaSt about using the correct vocabulary. All of my fellow students and our supervisors agree that the correct terms must be used when describing what we are doing. So, we shouldn't say "number on the top" and "number on the bottom" but rather we should say "numerator" and "denominator". My problem with that is, what is our definition that we give our students for those words. "Numberator" is known to students as "number on the top", and vice versa with the denominator, so are we really helping them speak "math" if they say it either way? I'm thinking about switching things up from "numerator" and "denominator" to "number we're dividing", and "number we're dividing by" and throw out the rest. Maybe it will work maybe not. We're gonna have to wait and see.