Well, not quite...
You see, "mathematics" is a study - a discipline - a singular item.
You study mathematics, just like you'd study physics (or medicine, or history) - they're all singular.
By saying "maths" you're implying plurality where none exists. The original noun is singular, and therefore the correct abbreviation should also be singluar--i.e., "math"
listen, american
mathematics is shortened to math
when you americans say "math" you mean "mathematics" no?
well, in british english, we keep the s to remember that it's a constellation of disciplines
for example, mathematics has several well known parts:
arithmetic (aka number theory)
algebra (symbolic logic)
encoding (language and cryptography)...
and so on
also, in british english we don't say "do the math" this is a very vague statement
we made an estimate
we calculated the odds
we made a guess
part of the reason why we hate this "do the math" expression so much is because it's so vague, and so indicative of the poor quality of education that until the last 30 years was mostly confined to the soviet union and the usa
Let me know when your quality of education gets your quality of education gets you one of these #/media/File%3AStarship_S20.jpg)
would you shorten statistical mechanics to stat mech or stat mechs?
That's only one topic. There are various mathematics.
see, the problem is that the governance of USA and USSR was all about making workers who were smart enough to do their job and dumb enough not to think about why they were doing it
this is an example of how that was embedded into the language
i wouldn't shorten such a narrow field name, how often am i gonna talk about it?
