My math teacher used to say that in this inequality 5 is smaller than 3 but 3 is less than 5.

Only greater than and less than are uniformly understood as and > relations > respectively; the other words (e.g., numbers) are irrelevant. (Latin). the use of smaller, lower (and smaller) are more ambiguous and should be avoided when writing mathematics.

Is it

worth it to argue with Google NGram for Google

image recovery?