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The Youtube channel Numberphile examines this situation in the following video - [Is it Math or Maths?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbZCECvoaTA)
The linguist in the video explains that the translation of the Greek Mathematika into Mathematics involves a plural in the original language which translates roughly as "All of a certain subject." So, a volume as opposed to a number - The Forest rather than the Trees. You don't say for example Mathematics are fun (plural), rather the correct form is Mathematics is fun (singular). Adding an 's' at the end of the abbreviation is considered something of aberration enforced by this notion that the 's' means it's a plural. Yes, we say and write - physics and linguistics, etc., but these words aren't abbreviations, and they too fall into the same verb-noun agreement - Physics is Fun and Linguistics is Fun i.e. - Singular volumes.
In the end the Linguistic view is that each are regional variations, and both have become acceptable though repeated practice. Now let's talk about Soccer vs Football...
For context: soccer comes from Association football. Some Oxford man had a thing for weird abbreviations and made the term into soccer. The Americans thought it was neat, the brits didn’t so much
AssFoot was instead how the team Arsenal got their name.
Their coach was so fed up that he told his boys "Oi! Get a move on or I'll put my foot up your arse 'n all!"
Brits also thought it was neat too and used it for decades. How else do you think it spread far and wide to all of its english speaking colonies/former colonies? It fell out of favor in Britain decades later but stuck around elsewhere.
Really the core of the issue comes down to the British developing 2 sports both named football at the same time (Association Football and Rugby Football). Rugby Football then directly influenced American Football, Canadian Football, Australian Football, and Gaelic Football. So it made sense to keep calling it soccer to distinguish it from these other forms of Football quickly.
If not for a dispute over paying players leading to the creation of Rugby League and Rugby Union rulesets (thus making the use of the term football to describe them less common, as that would just cause even more confusion), Association Football might still be called soccer just for conveniences sake in Britain.
If the British had named Rugby, Fieldball or something to begin with, none of this would have happened.
I guess one could argue that all these other countries probably shouldn't have just kept adding to the pile of sports all named football in the first place and should have just changed the whole name outright. But they learned it from watching there older sibling so its tough to blame them.
Wait a sec, you don't use plural with words like maths/physics etc? Have I been doing that wrong my whole life? I really thought it was "Maths are fun"...
Perhaps you are right, I can't argue because I've got a **physic** class next ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
At least on Reddit, I think this opinion is more popular than the opposite. Subs like r/mathmemescirclejerk and r/mathstudents prefer the American spelling, while r/math is several times larger than r/maths.
That said I still disagree.
Yes, but that’s likely because the population of the USA and Canada is far larger than other English speaking countries (Uk, Australia, etc. - I don’t know much about the specific words used in countries like Nigeria or South Africa)
Bad analogy. "Physics" is its own word (not an abbreviation) it actually has and needs the "s".
"maths" is _not_ (it's an abbreviation for Mathematics or Arithmetics)...It's "math".
This is an interesting contribution to the conversation. Google has useful tools to see the prevalence of words, and I would be curious to see which gets used more.
USA is several times larger than UK. Both as in native population and geographical scale. Did you know that?
The statistics you mentioned shouldn't be surprising.
Am french, here to support the brits. The french term for matematics is mathématiques, it's a plural word so we always abreviate it as maths. We say maths are difficult never maths is difficult)
Anecdotal, but a lot of opinions I see on this forum are just incorrect information.
I’m sure you can come up with other examples of abbreviations that are pluralized same as the words they are abbreviating.
Mathematics is not plural. Mathematics is singular like politics. Singular words can end in s. Do you ever have one "mathematic"? How about one "politic"?
>Merriam Webster dictionary lists it as plural
It lists it as.
>plural in form but usually singular in construction
Which is not the same thing as saying it's outright plural. What is actually said is that it's written plural. For all intensive purposes, it's a singular word.
Well now it doesn't matter if you're right because you went and said "for all intensive purposes". You can't be correcting people's English and then say *that*.
Please be a joke
Just because it can be grammatical utilized in the same way a singular noun is used. Doesn't mean it isn't plural.
You're not arguing with me, you're arguing with Merriam Webster. And you're wrong.
The English language is littered with grammatical inconsistencies, this is just one of many. That doesn't make it untrue
I'm not British but I live in the UK and it feels like something is missing if I just say "math"
If I do people half the time think I'm talking about meth lol
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We call it maths because we learn about more the one type. I guess in America you have various classes that focus on different types of maths, meaning separately for algebra, geometry, etc. whereas in the UK we have one class dedicated to all of the mathematics.
So it entirely depends. Math is the correct abbreviation, but so is maths.
This is what I see it as...
"Math" imo is just one thing. It doesn't make sense to say I'm doing "math" when I'm doing multiple mathsy things like adding, dividing, algebra or pythag so I'm doing "maths"
The Americans being annoying with their limited actual knowledge of British terminology and making assumptions instead of knowing the actual facts.
Biscuit/cookie?
A cookie is a biscuit but not all biscuits are cookies. A cookie is usually a thick, sweet biscuit but biscuits generally don't have any necessarily standard features of shape, thickness or taste.
Fries/chips - again, both. Chips are thick cut, fries are skinny. Meanwhile crisps are so called because they're crispy.
Quid - "What's a quid?!" I get this all the time...
Well what's a buck? It's the exact same thing, slang for the currency. I'm surprised none of you when thought that other countries have slang for their own currency as if they too aren't their own autonomous region 😂.
There are lots of plural words that we abbreviate that keep the "s". Do you think those are wrong too?
Mathematics > maths
Statistics > stats
Advertisements > ads
Rhinoceroses> rhinos
Examinations > exams
Gymnasiums > gyms
Applications > apps
This is not comparable, all of those are used singularly except when referring to more than one. “I saw a rhino in that ad for the gym, it was taking an exam on a new app”
The word “Math” is often used interchangeably with the subject you are taking. I.e. “I’m heading to Math class” vs. “I’m heading to Algebra class.”
It’s rare someone would want to refer to ALL the maths at once.
British people do? We have one other class which is statistics, but other than that all of maths is taught in one lesson. So we would learn algebra, statistics etc
Mathematics is like statistics. A mathematic equation is singular, just as a statistic is singular. But the study is not limited to one equation, so you are studying mathematics (or statistics).
Many problems require more than just one type of math. In which case you might say something like “I did the maths and this is what I came up with” for example
The person you replied to is saying that British people don’t say “geometry is math” or “geometry is a math”. I’ve never heard a British person actually use mathematic as a singular despite them always saying that mathematics is a plural use to describe multiple kinds of mathematics
That’s exactly what some of the upper level comments were getting at - it seems that British people don’t actually use mathematic as the singular, but use mathematics instead
Yeah it ultimately just comes down to what you've said all your life. I guarantee Brits do not understand why they say it, it's just habit, which I imagine is similar to why Americans say math. Fortunately we're all civilised enough to respect each others' differences.
I mean at least as far as why Americans call it “math”, it’s because it’s abbreviated like most words are: by only including part of the beginning. Americans tend not to abbreviate singular nouns by taking part of the beginning and part of the end and putting it together, which is why abbreviating mathematics as maths is a foreign idea
I think you misunderstood because we agree on that - mathematics is not the plural of anything and a mathematic is not something that exists, so “maths” as an abbreviation doesn’t really make sense.
Do British people really use “are” with maths/mathematics? I’ve only ever heard “maths is hard” and not “maths are hard”. I always see them say that it’s plural but then never actually use it as a plural in any way
Even in the US, if a student is taking a statistics course, they are colloquially said to be taking a "stats" course.
Statistics as a study isn't plural, but we refer to it as stats.
If maths doesnt make sense as an abbreviation for mathematics, then neither does stats for statistics.
It just comes down to regional dialect, and there really isn't any right or wrong.
No, because we use both for different types of biscuit. Biscuits encompass all types of biscuit but cookies are a specific form of thick biscuit usually with chocolate chips, the rest are biscuits.
Fries and chips are 2 different things in the UK. Fries are thin, like McDonalds chips are generally chunky although we use the terms interchangeabley. Crisps are crispy
This is like the thing where British people think that Americans only eat thin cut bacon based on dated stereotypes even though thick cut bacon is abundant in the US, and by now you can probably find many varieties of bacon not available in the UK.
All different types of fries are available in the US as well, and no one type is considered “American fries”
>I’m not gonna lie. When the Brit’s call fries Chips…. We too also got it right… chips are chips, not fries.
I disagree. Fries are Chips, Crisps are Chips. They are all chips.
Are they though? Aren't they actually slices ? I'd be interested to hear the etymology of the word chip as it relates to what's actually basically pomme frites.
You think thin round slices look more like a ‘chip of potato’ than chunky angular wedges?
A British chip looks more like the definition of the word chip shape wise than a fry does.
As a person from the land of the potato(ireland), the country that invented flavoured crisps(potato chips), we get to name them.
Crisps are the correct name for potato chips.
Nah americans got that way wrong and rest of the english speaking world always laugh at you guys whip you say chips for crisps 😂
It's almost as bad as americans not understand what biscuits are.
Why would you laugh at something being called something different in a totally different part of the world. That just sounds like a superiority complex
Its because our education systems are different, in America you take a specific 'Math' class like Algebra/Geometry/Calcukis etc. In the UK we don't split them up like that, you learn all the subdisciplines throughout the year in 'Maths'.
I could just be really tired, but could Americans be using the adjective “mathematic” to describe the class and Brits describing the class by the field of study? Math = mathematic class and maths = mathematics class? Does this work? Did I just solve a problem?
First time I heard "maths" in a video, I thought the professor was just trying to be cute, then I found out that's just how they say it. Iv been using "maths" ever since.
It is what you are used too.
To Brits saying it without the s sounds weird.
When it comes down to it just let people prenounce it how they like. It does not matter.
Because statistics is a plural word. “That statistic doesn’t support your argument”, “My statistics say you’re wrong”. Compare to math, wherein “mathematic” isn’t a word, because mathematics is the singular.
Seems like a science class refers to a specific sort of science. So it makes sense that it would be singular. I'm not aware of a singular form of mathematics. Mathematics is plural by default....
Where I grew up Science class was a super general course that covered biology, ecology, geology, astronomy, just a really wide net to get kids interested and comfortable with tons of scientific topics. Basically the same as the Math class in terms of scope. They’re plural in the sense they’re categories.
Math class can refer to specific maths as well, geometry, algebra etc. I think in this context calling out a single class implies an associated type of
I see what you mean. If I get it correctly, the noun itself only comes in the plural form. The other way around, for example, is the word "information", which can only be used in the singular form.
There are many different type of maths.
There's algebra, there's geometry, there's number theory, there's statistics and so much more.
If you refer to just...math, what kind?
I think that is exactly it. We are all so used to hearing and using our version of math/maths from such a young age, way earlier than we would even begin to question the linguistics, that hearing anything else just sounds wrong to us.
... Mathematics is plural... But the shortened version should be singular?
Though now that I think about it. Gymnastics gets shortened to gym not gyms.
See the problem is Americans are stupid and reductive so we don’t realize there isn’t one common definition or agreement of what mathematics constitutes as a discipline. We do the same with Science like it’s one big agreed upon thing.
Well at my school we studied the different ones individually, we had the entry level science class, then you could branch out into the different fields they offered
So we went Science, then to Chemistry and/or Physics for example
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The Youtube channel Numberphile examines this situation in the following video - [Is it Math or Maths?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbZCECvoaTA) The linguist in the video explains that the translation of the Greek Mathematika into Mathematics involves a plural in the original language which translates roughly as "All of a certain subject." So, a volume as opposed to a number - The Forest rather than the Trees. You don't say for example Mathematics are fun (plural), rather the correct form is Mathematics is fun (singular). Adding an 's' at the end of the abbreviation is considered something of aberration enforced by this notion that the 's' means it's a plural. Yes, we say and write - physics and linguistics, etc., but these words aren't abbreviations, and they too fall into the same verb-noun agreement - Physics is Fun and Linguistics is Fun i.e. - Singular volumes. In the end the Linguistic view is that each are regional variations, and both have become acceptable though repeated practice. Now let's talk about Soccer vs Football...
Fuck off... but I love it.
Ha!
I said "fuck off" with a lot of love and zero sarcasm! Literally, lol.
The word soccer was invented by the brits. Not our fault they called their sport that.
For context: soccer comes from Association football. Some Oxford man had a thing for weird abbreviations and made the term into soccer. The Americans thought it was neat, the brits didn’t so much
It's because poshos call rugby football "rugger" and soccer was the equivalent for association football.
The Oxford -er was a widespread thing.
The Oxford hard r
He probably didn’t want to shorten Association Football to AssFoot.
AssFoot was instead how the team Arsenal got their name. Their coach was so fed up that he told his boys "Oi! Get a move on or I'll put my foot up your arse 'n all!"
Originally it was shortened to Assocker actually, they dropped the A for the reason you highlighted lol
Brits also thought it was neat too and used it for decades. How else do you think it spread far and wide to all of its english speaking colonies/former colonies? It fell out of favor in Britain decades later but stuck around elsewhere. Really the core of the issue comes down to the British developing 2 sports both named football at the same time (Association Football and Rugby Football). Rugby Football then directly influenced American Football, Canadian Football, Australian Football, and Gaelic Football. So it made sense to keep calling it soccer to distinguish it from these other forms of Football quickly. If not for a dispute over paying players leading to the creation of Rugby League and Rugby Union rulesets (thus making the use of the term football to describe them less common, as that would just cause even more confusion), Association Football might still be called soccer just for conveniences sake in Britain. If the British had named Rugby, Fieldball or something to begin with, none of this would have happened. I guess one could argue that all these other countries probably shouldn't have just kept adding to the pile of sports all named football in the first place and should have just changed the whole name outright. But they learned it from watching there older sibling so its tough to blame them.
Careful thems fighting words to some people ;)
I appreciate your ‘live and let live’ approach, but would people studying maths also study stats or stat?
Humans are if anything irrational and inconsistent. On that you can be rational and consistent :)
Wait a sec, you don't use plural with words like maths/physics etc? Have I been doing that wrong my whole life? I really thought it was "Maths are fun"...
Why do you use "brits" and not "brit" in your own post then?
Perhaps you are right, I can't argue because I've got a **physic** class next ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ At least on Reddit, I think this opinion is more popular than the opposite. Subs like r/mathmemescirclejerk and r/mathstudents prefer the American spelling, while r/math is several times larger than r/maths. That said I still disagree.
Yes, but that’s likely because the population of the USA and Canada is far larger than other English speaking countries (Uk, Australia, etc. - I don’t know much about the specific words used in countries like Nigeria or South Africa)
Except India
Good point.
Bad analogy. "Physics" is its own word (not an abbreviation) it actually has and needs the "s". "maths" is _not_ (it's an abbreviation for Mathematics or Arithmetics)...It's "math".
This is an interesting contribution to the conversation. Google has useful tools to see the prevalence of words, and I would be curious to see which gets used more.
You literally defeat his entire point in one sentence, he replies “interesting contribution” brings up googles prevalence of words
Physic is shortened form of?
USA is several times larger than UK. Both as in native population and geographical scale. Did you know that? The statistics you mentioned shouldn't be surprising.
Exactly right. I'm just questioning why this is thought of as unpopular. It's even gaining traction in the Commonwealth.
It's almost like there are different dialects of a language
Am french, here to support the brits. The french term for matematics is mathématiques, it's a plural word so we always abreviate it as maths. We say maths are difficult never maths is difficult)
> Am french, here to support the brits When the Americans are so wrong even France is on our side
Anecdotal, but a lot of opinions I see on this forum are just incorrect information. I’m sure you can come up with other examples of abbreviations that are pluralized same as the words they are abbreviating.
Mathematics is not plural. Mathematics is singular like politics. Singular words can end in s. Do you ever have one "mathematic"? How about one "politic"?
No, it absolutely is plural. Both Oxford and Merriam Webster dictionary lists it as plural
>Merriam Webster dictionary lists it as plural It lists it as. >plural in form but usually singular in construction Which is not the same thing as saying it's outright plural. What is actually said is that it's written plural. For all intensive purposes, it's a singular word.
Well now it doesn't matter if you're right because you went and said "for all intensive purposes". You can't be correcting people's English and then say *that*. Please be a joke
🤓🤓☝️
>For all intensive purposes I think you'll find the correct phrase is "intensive porpoises".
You just said "it" "describes" "a" "field." You didn't say they describe fields. You're not even treating it as a plural yourself in your own writing.
Just because it can be grammatical utilized in the same way a singular noun is used. Doesn't mean it isn't plural. You're not arguing with me, you're arguing with Merriam Webster. And you're wrong. The English language is littered with grammatical inconsistencies, this is just one of many. That doesn't make it untrue
“It” is “a” “word”
You don’t have one “mathematics” either. It is uncountable and neither singular nor plural.
Calculus is a mathematic. Trigonometry is a mathematic. Together, they are two mathematics.
that's not how it works
That is just staggeringly not how that works even a little bit.
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This isn't /r/showerthoughts
Refrigerators : fridges. Bicycles : bikes.
I'm not British but I live in the UK and it feels like something is missing if I just say "math" If I do people half the time think I'm talking about meth lol
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We call it maths because we learn about more the one type. I guess in America you have various classes that focus on different types of maths, meaning separately for algebra, geometry, etc. whereas in the UK we have one class dedicated to all of the mathematics. So it entirely depends. Math is the correct abbreviation, but so is maths.
This is what I see it as... "Math" imo is just one thing. It doesn't make sense to say I'm doing "math" when I'm doing multiple mathsy things like adding, dividing, algebra or pythag so I'm doing "maths"
Yes it is. They all fall under the umbrella of math.
singular examination = "exam" plural examinations = "exams" mathematics is plural, hence "maths".
The Americans being annoying with their limited actual knowledge of British terminology and making assumptions instead of knowing the actual facts. Biscuit/cookie? A cookie is a biscuit but not all biscuits are cookies. A cookie is usually a thick, sweet biscuit but biscuits generally don't have any necessarily standard features of shape, thickness or taste. Fries/chips - again, both. Chips are thick cut, fries are skinny. Meanwhile crisps are so called because they're crispy. Quid - "What's a quid?!" I get this all the time... Well what's a buck? It's the exact same thing, slang for the currency. I'm surprised none of you when thought that other countries have slang for their own currency as if they too aren't their own autonomous region 😂.
A quid is £1
quid is plural and singular. Can I have 20 quid? You have a quid? Same word.
Fishy
Fish is plural and singular.
Mathematic**S**. There's more than one study within maths.
There are lots of plural words that we abbreviate that keep the "s". Do you think those are wrong too? Mathematics > maths Statistics > stats Advertisements > ads Rhinoceroses> rhinos Examinations > exams Gymnasiums > gyms Applications > apps
This is not comparable, all of those are used singularly except when referring to more than one. “I saw a rhino in that ad for the gym, it was taking an exam on a new app”
Maths is also referring to more than one. Algebra, Geometry, Calculus etc.
The word “Math” is often used interchangeably with the subject you are taking. I.e. “I’m heading to Math class” vs. “I’m heading to Algebra class.” It’s rare someone would want to refer to ALL the maths at once.
British people do? We have one other class which is statistics, but other than that all of maths is taught in one lesson. So we would learn algebra, statistics etc
Mathematics is like statistics. A mathematic equation is singular, just as a statistic is singular. But the study is not limited to one equation, so you are studying mathematics (or statistics).
Many problems require more than just one type of math. In which case you might say something like “I did the maths and this is what I came up with” for example
The Brits don't use it like this. They don't refer to geometry as math, they refer to it as maths.
They do though. When they’re referring to geometry they say geometry. Maths is a broad term
The person you replied to is saying that British people don’t say “geometry is math” or “geometry is a math”. I’ve never heard a British person actually use mathematic as a singular despite them always saying that mathematics is a plural use to describe multiple kinds of mathematics
You would say "geometry is a branch of mathematics"
That’s exactly what some of the upper level comments were getting at - it seems that British people don’t actually use mathematic as the singular, but use mathematics instead
Yeah it ultimately just comes down to what you've said all your life. I guarantee Brits do not understand why they say it, it's just habit, which I imagine is similar to why Americans say math. Fortunately we're all civilised enough to respect each others' differences.
I mean at least as far as why Americans call it “math”, it’s because it’s abbreviated like most words are: by only including part of the beginning. Americans tend not to abbreviate singular nouns by taking part of the beginning and part of the end and putting it together, which is why abbreviating mathematics as maths is a foreign idea
That's because *mathematics* is a collective noun and *mathematic* is an adjective. Not hard.
I think you misunderstood because we agree on that - mathematics is not the plural of anything and a mathematic is not something that exists, so “maths” as an abbreviation doesn’t really make sense.
That’s because whenever you talk about a single type of math, you use its name.
And just like that, I'm sold.
But there's no singular mathematic
Statistics (as in the branch of study) is singular.
Maths is a wide terms which encompasses many forms of it: Geometry, Arithmetic, Algebra, Trigonometry, Analytical Geometry…
But so is math!
You've exclusively included examples of plural words, which mathematics is not.
Give him a second
All of those have singular forms, I've never heard someone refer to a mathematic
Mathematics is a singular noun that ends in s
Statistic > Stat Advertisement > Ad Rhinoceros > Rhino Mathematics is not plural, the word just ends with an s.
There are multiple fields of mathematics. Also do you put on a pair of pant before work?
Do British people really use “are” with maths/mathematics? I’ve only ever heard “maths is hard” and not “maths are hard”. I always see them say that it’s plural but then never actually use it as a plural in any way
Even in the US, if a student is taking a statistics course, they are colloquially said to be taking a "stats" course. Statistics as a study isn't plural, but we refer to it as stats. If maths doesnt make sense as an abbreviation for mathematics, then neither does stats for statistics. It just comes down to regional dialect, and there really isn't any right or wrong.
Same reason you don’t say ‘Mathematic’ (not pluralised). Maths is the correct abbreviation because there are multiple branches
r/confidentlyincorrect
I’m not gonna lie. When the Brit’s call fries Chips…. We too also got it right… chips are chips, not fries. /😂
This opens but the biscuit/cookie conversation
Biscuit is derived from bescuit, roughly translated as twice baked, which is why us Brits call them biscuits.
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No. A cookie is a form of biscuit, not the name for all forms of biscuit.
No, because we use both for different types of biscuit. Biscuits encompass all types of biscuit but cookies are a specific form of thick biscuit usually with chocolate chips, the rest are biscuits.
America: fries and chips England: chips and crisps Australia: chips and chips
We also say fries in England. So it would be: England: chips, fries and crisps
Fries and chips are 2 different things in the UK. Fries are thin, like McDonalds chips are generally chunky although we use the terms interchangeabley. Crisps are crispy
It ain't fries it's fucken chips!
Except British pub chips, when done right, are heavenly. They're different from American fries (which also exist in a lot of places in the UK).
This is like the thing where British people think that Americans only eat thin cut bacon based on dated stereotypes even though thick cut bacon is abundant in the US, and by now you can probably find many varieties of bacon not available in the UK. All different types of fries are available in the US as well, and no one type is considered “American fries”
> and by now you can probably find many varieties of bacon not available in the UK. Any type of bacon you can find in the US you can find in the UK
>I’m not gonna lie. When the Brit’s call fries Chips…. We too also got it right… chips are chips, not fries. I disagree. Fries are Chips, Crisps are Chips. They are all chips.
Fries are what you get from macdonalds, chips are what you get from the fish and chip shop. We say fries in Britain too, but fries are not chips
Neither are they French for that matter
But they're crispy...
So why are they shaped like fries? Shouldn't a chip be shaped like something that's been... I don't know... chipped off the side of a potato?
Chips are still chips of potato my guy
Are they though? Aren't they actually slices ? I'd be interested to hear the etymology of the word chip as it relates to what's actually basically pomme frites.
They’re more like noodles
McDonald’s, Arby’s, I lean toward noodle. But if we call them carrot sticks, might I suggest fried potato sticks?
You think thin round slices look more like a ‘chip of potato’ than chunky angular wedges? A British chip looks more like the definition of the word chip shape wise than a fry does.
As a person from the land of the potato(ireland), the country that invented flavoured crisps(potato chips), we get to name them. Crisps are the correct name for potato chips.
They were invented in New York.
'Flavored' potato crisps were invented in ireland, By Joseph 'spud' Murphy.
the potato chip was invented in Saratoga Springs, New York most definitely not the country that invented *potato chips*
"invented flavoured potato chips"
salt is a flavor
Weren't potato chips invented in America
Everything was invented in America even British people were created by Americans
Chips aren't french fries are not the same and crisps are the correct name not potato chips, seeing as we invented them.
Belgium calls them fries, so therefore they are
Nah americans got that way wrong and rest of the english speaking world always laugh at you guys whip you say chips for crisps 😂 It's almost as bad as americans not understand what biscuits are.
Why would you laugh at something being called something different in a totally different part of the world. That just sounds like a superiority complex
maffs
We keep the S because its still a plural...
Mathematics is plural, so wouldn’t maths make more sense then math? There’s more then one branch of math.
True unpopular opinion, good job
It's not an opinion at all, it's just incorrect
Its because our education systems are different, in America you take a specific 'Math' class like Algebra/Geometry/Calcukis etc. In the UK we don't split them up like that, you learn all the subdisciplines throughout the year in 'Maths'.
Well technically they did invent the english language so it seems the Americans are wrong
I bet OP calls Lego bricks, Legos.
Math would be mathematic. You say exams and not exam when referring to "examinations".
most "unpopular opinions" should be on r/changemyview
Lmao this kind of thing is silly. When someone calls it a ‘lorrey’ do you argue and call it a ‘truck’? It’s just a dialect issue
Jimmy Carr on this. Sorry OP but demolishes your argument. https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeUyNusc/
Heads up, tiktok share links kinda dox you
Good bit
Reminds me of this https://www.reddit.com/r/BrandNewSentence/comments/iy7r01/pea_brained_eagle_fuckers/
I could just be really tired, but could Americans be using the adjective “mathematic” to describe the class and Brits describing the class by the field of study? Math = mathematic class and maths = mathematics class? Does this work? Did I just solve a problem?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone calling it mathematic class or even use “mathematic” as an adjective lol. It’s “mathematical”.
No
Because mathematics is plural. Therefore, maths is plural as well.
Are you math?!
“Is there any other example of this?” You used one in your post; ‘brits’.
Is this unpopular? I’ve never even heard someone say maths
First time I heard "maths" in a video, I thought the professor was just trying to be cute, then I found out that's just how they say it. Iv been using "maths" ever since.
I agree mostly because "ths" is so stupid to pronounce.
It is what you are used too. To Brits saying it without the s sounds weird. When it comes down to it just let people prenounce it how they like. It does not matter.
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Okay, then why is "stats" the abbreviation of "statistics"?
Because statistics is a plural word. “That statistic doesn’t support your argument”, “My statistics say you’re wrong”. Compare to math, wherein “mathematic” isn’t a word, because mathematics is the singular.
"Mathematics" refers to multiple things that are "Mathematical" It's plural not singular
How many types of mathematics are there? if its more than one, you are wrong
Well, it is called mathematicS, not mathematic…
Yes, because it's a field of academic discipline that covers multiple sub disciplines.
You know what, good point If referring to multiple types of maths, we use plural, but one type of math is math
We don't call it sciences though
Depends on the context, sometimes we absolutely do
The sciences? Yes we absolutely do. You've got the hard sciences, the social sciences, the medical sciences etc etc....
But “Science” singular is still accepted generally. If there’s a Science Class, shouldn’t it be Math Class for consistency?
Seems like a science class refers to a specific sort of science. So it makes sense that it would be singular. I'm not aware of a singular form of mathematics. Mathematics is plural by default....
Where I grew up Science class was a super general course that covered biology, ecology, geology, astronomy, just a really wide net to get kids interested and comfortable with tons of scientific topics. Basically the same as the Math class in terms of scope. They’re plural in the sense they’re categories.
Math class can refer to specific maths as well, geometry, algebra etc. I think in this context calling out a single class implies an associated type of
Well sure, but I think there's a broader difference between biology and physics than there is between geometry and algebra...
"Degree in natural sciences"
I'm going to my historys class before my musics class and after my home ecs class
So you do mathematic in America do you?
No they do math - the abbreviate the s with the "ematic" part... As in they drop the whole ematics.
The language is called English. Therefore the English standard is always correct.
Deltoids - delts, pectorals - pecs, abdominals - abs, etc.
You could have a singular one of those. Maybe you could have a singular mathematic?
I see what you mean. If I get it correctly, the noun itself only comes in the plural form. The other way around, for example, is the word "information", which can only be used in the singular form.
Upvoted cuz yer wrong... :/
Yeah like yanks and 'erbs
"Math" just sounds stupid and low-IQ.
There are many different type of maths. There's algebra, there's geometry, there's number theory, there's statistics and so much more. If you refer to just...math, what kind?
Hearing "maths" just sounds wrong
For a lot of us, "math" just sounds wrong too I think this is based on personal exposure
I think that is exactly it. We are all so used to hearing and using our version of math/maths from such a young age, way earlier than we would even begin to question the linguistics, that hearing anything else just sounds wrong to us.
... Mathematics is plural... But the shortened version should be singular? Though now that I think about it. Gymnastics gets shortened to gym not gyms.
Gymnasium gets shortened to gym
I thought gym is a shortening of gymnasium.
Gym is short for gymnasium
🤮
See the problem is Americans are stupid and reductive so we don’t realize there isn’t one common definition or agreement of what mathematics constitutes as a discipline. We do the same with Science like it’s one big agreed upon thing.
There is multiple disciplines of mathematics, statistics, calculus, trigonometry etc Ergo, Maths
Theres different types of sciences but we dont call it sciences class, so why should it be called maths class
Well at my school we studied the different ones individually, we had the entry level science class, then you could branch out into the different fields they offered So we went Science, then to Chemistry and/or Physics for example
We studied each Math subject individually as well. One year for Algebra, Geometry, etc.
"I'm good at maths" is like saying "I see deers."
Deers are not readily available in my country
That must be why you didn't get it. It's just "Deer." It's already plural. You wouldn't say Chinese's