President Trump

Dax777 said:
No. Mathematics is singular. It describes a thing—a field of study—not many things. The S on the end doesn't indicate plurality.

Mathematics is a mass noun and usually takes a singular verb. You don't say mathematics 'are' my favorite subject.. You say "mathematics IS my favorite subject."
So when you shorten the noun, it's redundant to add the 's'.

That said, it's a preference thing. Americans and Canadians have the common sense to not add the 's' at the end since the whole point is to abbreviate... The English on the other hand do add it.. But it's just a preference. It's neither logical nor more correct.
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What’s the study of the economy called when you’re at college or university? Or what about politics, linguistics, ethics, tactics, aesthetics etc.

And you may say not all of them have a shorter version but you’re into football yeah? How would you say the shortened version of statistics?
 
I'm With Stupid said:
Stats
Physics
OAPs

Literally anything that is genuinely a plural will add an -s to the shortened form. Even heard someone shorten Timberlands to Timbs once (as in the shoes). Obviously we call all agree that person was a wanker.

The question is whether mathematics is a plural in the first place, and like most linguistics, it's full of people trying to 'logically' prove that their preferred way of saying something is 'correct' when there's no such thing as correct, just common.

Having said that, I'm not going to take any lectures from Americans on the use of plurals, when they can't even decide within a single sentence whether something is a singular or plural. "Man City is playing much better than they were in the first half." Fuck off.
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My Ashton Grammar English teacher (old Miss Greenwood) is rolling over in her grave, but my U.S. Uni Creative Writing teacher is impressed by both your example and salutation.
 
SWP's back said:
And you may say not all of them have a shorter version but you’re into football yeah? How would you say the shortened version of statistics?
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One statistic
Two statistics

Statistics shortened to stats because it’s a plural.

Now, tell me again about Mathematics…

One mathematic??
Two mathematics??
 
SWP's back said:
What’s the study of the economy called when you’re at college or university? Or what about politics, linguistics, ethics, tactics, aesthetics etc.

And you may say not all of them have a shorter version but you’re into football yeah? How would you say the shortened version of statistics?
Click to expand...
Mathematics is a plural as it covers lots of different topics, arithmetic, calculus, trigonometry, statistics and so on. Historically in printing when shortening long words the trend would have been to use an apostrophe to denote removed characters (from within the middle of the word) so we get to Math’s. with a full stop ending. People would originally read the word in full but laziness and familiarity with the contraction eventually lead to the abbreviation being spoken as written. And then the apostrophe gets lost.
 
Dax777 said:
No. Mathematics is singular. It describes a thing—a field of study—not many things. The S on the end doesn't indicate plurality.

Mathematics is a mass noun and usually takes a singular verb. You don't say mathematics 'are' my favorite subject.. You say "mathematics IS my favorite subject."
So when you shorten the noun, it's redundant to add the 's'.

That said, it's a preference thing. Americans and Canadians have the common sense to not add the 's' at the end since the whole point is to abbreviate... The English on the other hand do add it.. But it's just a preference. It's neither logical nor more correct.
Click to expand...
If the whole point is to abbreviate, they should call it ‘m’
 
Citizen of Legoland said:
Mathematics is a plural as it covers lots of different topics, arithmetic, calculus, trigonometry, statistics and so on. Historically in printing when shortening long words the trend would have been to use an apostrophe to denote removed characters (from within the middle of the word) so we get to Math’s. with a full stop ending. People would originally read the word in full but laziness and familiarity with the contraction eventually lead to the abbreviation being spoken as written. And then the apostrophe gets lost.
Click to expand...
THE LOST APOSTROPHE
Once upon a time, in the land of mathematics….
 
ChicagoBlue said:
My Ashton Grammar English teacher (old Miss Greenwood) is rolling over in her grave, but my U.S. Uni Creative Writing teacher is impressed by both your example and salutation.
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Haha literally an old school teacher.

For some reason I always preferred Miss Mathison. Her pants never left anything to the imagination, like a face pressed against a window (for non-AGS readers)
 
ChicagoBlue said:
One statistic
Two statistics

Statistics shortened to stats because it’s a plural.

Now, tell me again about Mathematics…

One mathematic??
Two mathematics??
Click to expand...
Yes if someone was to check the mathematics, its would be check the maths.

That’s entirely my point.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
Stats
Physics
OAPs

Literally anything that is genuinely a plural will add an -s to the shortened form. Even heard someone shorten Timberlands to Timbs once (as in the shoes). Obviously we call all agree that person was a wanker.

The question is whether mathematics is a plural in the first place, and like most linguistics, it's full of people trying to 'logically' prove that their preferred way of saying something is 'correct' when there's no such thing as correct, just common.

Having said that, I'm not going to take any lectures from Americans on the use of plurals, when they can't even decide within a single sentence whether something is a singular or plural. "Man City is playing much better than they were in the first half." Fuck off.
Click to expand...
I can’t abide by any **** that uses a football club in the singular. Horrible Americanism.
 
All in all, America and Canada incorrectly use Math. Nothing more to it.

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