Huh. Well, I’m just a humble turnip farmer but “Mathematics” as a FIELD is a singular noun. There is only a singular entity of mathematics- there isn’t “Old Mathematics” and “New Mathematics.”
“Hi. I’m Jim, I like scis fis movies”
“Sci fi huh? Me too!”
“No, sciS fiS you pleb. Are you not aware there is more than one science and more than one fiction?! You must be a poly sciS major and not an English major.”
“Im Jane. I am an artstist.”
“Don’t you mean artist?”
“NO. artStist fool. There is more than one art that I do!”
A bit odd… so- the other common ones is that Mathematics is a mass noun. Mass nouns are generally spoken as if singular. An example is the word “anger” as in: “he has great anger in him.” Anger has some measure but isn’t generally quantifiable. You aren’t 10 angry or 0 angry and if you were we couldn’t count it. You generally don’t speak of anger in plural. “He erupted with angers” or such. You may be “full of anger” or “have some anger” etc.
Now there are some odd balls. Speaking of art, one might say they love art or they might say the live the arts. Notice there though? “THE arts.” Arts is plural but the article “the” is singular. You can be a person of science, you can study science and mean any and all or an unspecified discipline- but you can also study the sciences, support the sciences, etc.
THE sciences. We can do away with “the,” you can simply love arts, practice sciences. This is another aspect of Mass nouns. Your luggage is a mass noun. If you have 12 bags each bag is “luggage.” “Can you bring THE luggage?” “Where IS my luggage?” A plural noun would be “where are my luggage?” To a native English speaker “where ARE my luggage” should sound very strange.
“I am doing my Maths homeworks.”
Indeed you are Timmy. at least in the US English- we say “homework.” “I am doing my homework.” “The teacher gave us homework.” We do not say: “the teacher gave us homeworks” or “I have homeworks from my classes.” Homework is singular but it COMPRISES MULTIPLE ARTICLES.
The “s” at the end of mathematics does not serve as a plural. This is inherent ignorant for two main reasons.
1. If mathematics is plural… what is the singular form? Mathematic? Ever hear someone say: “I did a mathematic just now and the answer is 3”? No. The “s” in mathematics is a noun marker that changes the adjective into a noun. You cannot have a plural form of something that has no singular form outside of a Plural tantum- scissors without the a becomes a verb for example- such as to scissor. Math is NOT a plural tantum as it does not refer to a singular object.
So anyway- the early use of some form of “math/maths” I find is around 1840 in the US. It seems that at one point “maths” or a variant was used at least by some on the US. In Britain the early 1900’s are the first record I see of “maths” but… it seems that in early usage it was written as “math’s” which makes more sense.
So, it is and has been common in English to use apostrophes to shorten words. ”Y’all, o’clock, ‘tis,” etc.
when shortening “mathematics” if you take the first part- “math” and the last letter “s” you get… “math’s” with the apostrophe denoting that you removed the letters between the h and s.
Of course the apostrophe doesn’t change the pronunciation and is an extra bit to write (or nowadays type) so they probably lopped it off and made it “maths.”
In the US and other “math” countries we probably just dropped the S because it isn’t needed. Mathematics can be applied singularly to one aspect or discipline or as a plural, and as a mass noun it is proper to use the
singular anyway- so we get a slightly shorter “math” to say and write.
So in that sense “maths” wouldn’t be WRONG, it would be just as valid to say “maths” the same as one could call a “cordless drill” a “cordless” or a “drill” in general usage. One is just shorter than the other and amongst a similar linguistic use group either is easy enough to understand.
So no. Mathematics does not shorten to math because it is plural. That’s foolish because of that were the case the singular of mathematics when referring to one aspect would still be math, and because when one speaks of mathematics one uses the singular anyway. The concept of “mathematics” as plural shows a lack of fundamental grasp of English regardless of BE or AE etc.
“Hi. I’m Jim, I like scis fis movies”
“Sci fi huh? Me too!”
“No, sciS fiS you pleb. Are you not aware there is more than one science and more than one fiction?! You must be a poly sciS major and not an English major.”
“Im Jane. I am an artstist.”
“Don’t you mean artist?”
“NO. artStist fool. There is more than one art that I do!”
A bit odd… so- the other common ones is that Mathematics is a mass noun. Mass nouns are generally spoken as if singular. An example is the word “anger” as in: “he has great anger in him.” Anger has some measure but isn’t generally quantifiable. You aren’t 10 angry or 0 angry and if you were we couldn’t count it. You generally don’t speak of anger in plural. “He erupted with angers” or such. You may be “full of anger” or “have some anger” etc.
THE sciences. We can do away with “the,” you can simply love arts, practice sciences. This is another aspect of Mass nouns. Your luggage is a mass noun. If you have 12 bags each bag is “luggage.” “Can you bring THE luggage?” “Where IS my luggage?” A plural noun would be “where are my luggage?” To a native English speaker “where ARE my luggage” should sound very strange.
Indeed you are Timmy. at least in the US English- we say “homework.” “I am doing my homework.” “The teacher gave us homework.” We do not say: “the teacher gave us homeworks” or “I have homeworks from my classes.” Homework is singular but it COMPRISES MULTIPLE ARTICLES.
The “s” at the end of mathematics does not serve as a plural. This is inherent ignorant for two main reasons.
1. If mathematics is plural… what is the singular form? Mathematic? Ever hear someone say: “I did a mathematic just now and the answer is 3”? No. The “s” in mathematics is a noun marker that changes the adjective into a noun. You cannot have a plural form of something that has no singular form outside of a Plural tantum- scissors without the a becomes a verb for example- such as to scissor. Math is NOT a plural tantum as it does not refer to a singular object.
So, it is and has been common in English to use apostrophes to shorten words. ”Y’all, o’clock, ‘tis,” etc.
when shortening “mathematics” if you take the first part- “math” and the last letter “s” you get… “math’s” with the apostrophe denoting that you removed the letters between the h and s.
Of course the apostrophe doesn’t change the pronunciation and is an extra bit to write (or nowadays type) so they probably lopped it off and made it “maths.”
In the US and other “math” countries we probably just dropped the S because it isn’t needed. Mathematics can be applied singularly to one aspect or discipline or as a plural, and as a mass noun it is proper to use the
So in that sense “maths” wouldn’t be WRONG, it would be just as valid to say “maths” the same as one could call a “cordless drill” a “cordless” or a “drill” in general usage. One is just shorter than the other and amongst a similar linguistic use group either is easy enough to understand.
So no. Mathematics does not shorten to math because it is plural. That’s foolish because of that were the case the singular of mathematics when referring to one aspect would still be math, and because when one speaks of mathematics one uses the singular anyway. The concept of “mathematics” as plural shows a lack of fundamental grasp of English regardless of BE or AE etc.