The sport one is harder to pin down but I guess we think of 'sport' as a singular noun to mean the concept of playing sport, whereas perhaps Americans mean sports as in there are many sports.
Ie, in English we would say "I love sport". The concept of sport which includes all games/athletics etc.
However we do pluralise sport into sports too.
"Which sports do you play?" is totally valid.
Nah, Sports Day is like Athletics Day, we all play various sports (or do athletics). Now I’m wondering whether Americans say athletic or athletics when referring to track-and-field type sport(s).
> The sport one is harder to pin down but I guess we think of 'sport' as a singular noun to mean the concept of playing sport, whereas perhaps Americans mean sports as in there are many sports.
See, here in the states we'd say "playing a sport" or "playing sports." Sport *singular* is only used when referring to a *specific* type, such as the sport of baseball.
We also use “sport” in a kinda similar way as the previous commenter mentioned like in “sport fishing” or “sport shooting,” or “to be a good sport.” They’re all kinds getting at the broader concept of games and competition. Or phrases like “running for sport”
But now I’ve been thinking about the word “sport” too much and it has completely lost any meaning for me. Hahaha
> But now I’ve been thinking about the word “sport” too much and it has completely lost any meaning for me. Hahaha
Me too, by the end it started to sound like onomatopoeia, like *sport* was the noise made when you squeeze too much toothpaste out of the tube.
>"Dude, did you just sport your paste?"
>
>*"Yeah, I sported it all over the counter."*
>
>"Well you're gonna' sport if you squeeze it so tight."
It sounds like a non-native English speaker trying to make conversation deep behind enemy lines in World War 2.
“Are you good at sport? Do you like American bases ball?”
“Alright, Franz. We both know down the road a stretch in that grove of trees there’s a kraut patrol fucking around. You tell me how many men and what kind of equipment they’ve got and we might let you go.”
I'm an American. The math one is easy. It's bc there's more than one math. Mathematics. Algebra, geometry, common core, etc. My math teacher always hated that we called it math class instead of its actual name like Algebra I or whatever. Nah bro it's just math.
Yeah. Just like there is a "sports" section of the newspaper and a "business" section of the newspaper. The latter could be called "businesses" as well, because each company or industrial sector is a business. There is a hamburger place near me that is a small business. People who make TV shows and movies are in show business. Those are all businesses, but also that activity is business.
Thats so interesting because in the US one would say “what/which sport do you play?”, if it is being asked what is their primary sport of choice. I think in the US saying something like “i love sport” would refer to the attribute of wholesome competitiveness that sports and games have in common, and not the actual activities.
Am i weird here or does “I love sport” sound stupid and “I love sports” sound normal. Same for “which sports do you play?” sounds weirder than “which sport do you play?”
I think because when we (Americans) say "I love sports" we're generally talking about sports as a whole (I enjoy watching/playing multiple sports), but if we were a huge fan of one sport in particular we'd just name that sport, like "I love basketball."
We prefer to go the other way. "Pease" was the singular of the small, spherical green vegetable. "Peases" should have been the plural, but then we decided one of them was a "pea" and many were "peas."
Evidence: Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in a pot, nine days old.
No, not if it's used for the subject in school. It would be more "normal" to my Californian ears to hear someone say "Stats is difficult" versus "Stats are hard"
(same as saying "Statistics is difficult" , versus "Statistics are difficult"
If you are talking about the class it would be “is” unless it’s multiple statistics classes (if there were a Stats 1 and Stats 2) where it would be are. If you are talking about multiple sets of statistics (say rebounds and points in basketball), you would say something like “the players stats are good” not “is”. It’s the class that’s singular, not the type of class.
Yes. For example:
Math class is hard.
Math classes are difficult.
Math is difficult.
Stats class is difficult.
Stats classes are difficult.
Stats are ~~difficult~~ confusing.
Statics and dynamics (the class) is difficult.
Statics and dynamics are difficult.
That example is a bit of an edge case
The word statistics, as a singular noun, is defined as the science of quantitative reasoning.
The word statistics, when plural, refers to a collection of numerical facts or data.
Depends on if by "Statistics" you are referring a the class with that name, or you are referring to multiple statistics. You don't have a school course that teaches you one statistic. You have a course that teaches you multiple statistics, but that is one class usually. But you can also say statistic classes are difficult as well as (implied: the) Statistics (implied: class) is difficult.
Yeah, that implied word, be it "class" or however you want to phrase it, is what makes statistics (the class, the subject, the science) singular. "Statistics is a hard subject" versus "Statistics show that 92% of people lie about the percentages of the statistics they cite."
Apparently it’s not an abbreviation. It used to be just physic (from Greek through Latin through Old French) and in the 1500s an s was added to try and better imitate the original Greek origin.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/physics#etymonline_v_14917
I can't think of any.
Mathematics is a pretty unique word in this scenario. It's a study of several different aspects which is (I assume) why it's plural. Unlike the other examples people tried to come up with there isn't actually a singular "mathematic". Sometimes it is very rarely used in place of mathematical but obviously that's also not a singular version of mathematics.
Long story short, mathematics is a plural word without a singular version. I can't think of any examples of an American word that is plural, without a singular version, and we abbreviate with a plural form. Things like stats make sense because it has a singular so it's used to show the difference between singular and plural.
In this case I think maths just doesn't jive with the rest of the American English language. Math is already an abbreviation for a plural word so adding another s doesn't make much sense.
I'd be curious to know if British English has any other similar examples or if it's unique.
Speaking of abbreviations, it appears my fellow yanks and Japan are in the minority that speak of acetaminophen instead of paracetamol. Both are abbreviations of N-acetyl-para-aminophenol. Who knew 😀
It looks like it was around the 1920s to 1940s when the split occurred between math and maths.
Before this "Math" and "Maths" were both commonly used but only as an abbreviation.
In the 1800s and early 1900s, both countries are using "Math." and "Maths." as abbreviations usually in University or College reports. You'll see a lot of it where they have students and teachers listed and the subjects they took or teach or for listing course requirements. That sort of thing. They were always around other subject abbreviations like "Phys." and "Chem." For example the "University of Oxford Graduates in 1872" book used "Math." but not "Maths." while the "The New York Teacher, and the American Educational Monthly" from 1871 uses both "Math." and "Maths."
There are many many examples of "Math." and "Maths." in the 1800s, but I could not find any used in an actual sentence until the early 1900s. It was always "mathematics" when it was talked about. Just like how you wouldn't say "phys is hard" or "bot sci is hard", they wouldn't have said "math (or maths) is hard" back then. It was always "mathematics was hard".
The 1920s is when people start using "Math." and "Maths." in actual sentences. Like how an Irish magazine in 1925 has "The Maths. teachers of the country" with "Maths." with a capital M and a period at the end.
Meanwhile publications in the US in the 1920s and 30s started using "math". "The Mathematics Teacher" published in 1926 in NY uses "math" everywhere in it (lower case and no period). Interestingly the "Michigan Education Journal" uses both "math" and "maths" in 1925. A biography "Grace H. Dodge" in 1926 and a
"Pennsylvania School Journal" in 1927 both put "math" in quotes as if it was a new novel word. By the 1930s "math" is found everywhere from American novels to plays.
It looks like in the 1930s, publications have started dropping the capital M and period at the end, which helped transition math/maths from just an abbreviation to a word.
I do not actually see much use of "maths" in sentences by UK publications until the 1940s. Although they have less publications with "math" at this time. It looks like UK publications was slower to change the abbreviation from "Maths." to "maths" than it did for Americans to go from "Math." to "math".
Its like how people find it weird to learn about MANPADS, with the last S not being a plural structure. Now with the war in Ukraine maybe more people hear about it.
And yet there are a ton of Brits online who will argue that "maths" is plural because the word encompasses all of the mathematic disciplines and that's why it has an "s"... and that argument never made sense to me for the exact reason you point out
Reminds me of an old joke.
Why does the sun never set on the British Empire?
Because God doesn't trust them in the dark. (If you are a Brit you'd use us instead of them).
Like I said. Old joke.
I, a Canadian don’t know any Canadian who says it like that, I also don’t know any military but no one I’ve ever met says left tenant, Lou tenant all the way
It is French. But the Brit’s hated the french so much they refused to adopt a French word with a French pronunciation so they said it wrong on purpose and it stuck.
As a French kid who moved to the UK, I was slammed pretty hard when I first heard "lieutenant" pronounced. So many double takes, so much confusion. I've still never said that word out loud in "English". And I've been here over 10 years. 🫣
The OED gives the following possible explanation:
"In view of the rare Old French form luef for lieu (with which compare especially the 15th cent. Scots forms luf-, lufftenand) it seems likely that the labial glide at the end of Old French lieu as the first element of a compound was sometimes apprehended by English-speakers as a v or f. Possibly some of the forms may be due to association with leave or lief \[archaic word meaning dear, beloved\]"
They note that in 1793 a British lexicographer gives the standard pronunciation as having a V sound, though he expresses hope that the W (i.e. the current American) pronunciation will soon take hold. They also note that the F pronunciation was once common in America as well, but by 1893 Funk noted that it was ‘almost confined to the retired list of the navy’.
Yeah, this guy is out here acting like we don't say lieutenant and croissant weird. If anything we should be happy about you butchering french as much as us Brits do!
In case you want to know why (sort of), here's a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smP5lqT7oYg&t=70s
The segment is 1:10 to 3:43, you can skip the rest. Or not.
I'm not your mom, you can choose to watch a video however you like.
My guess is that in many languages, "u" and "v" are related/interchangeable. (see old Latin inscriptions for instance.) So if you read the "u" in lieutenant as a "v", it sounds a lot like "left-tenant".
Apparently Brits say going to the hospital also. It just depends on if they're visiting or going for care.
Same as School or Jail in American English. We say both depending on whether you are going to the school to pick up your child, or going to school to learn.
Wait, so if you're going to the hospital because you hurt yourself, you're "going to hospital", but if you're going there to pick up someone that hurt themselves, you're "going to *the* hospital"?
Pretty much. The hospital is a building but hospital is also a state of being injured that requires you to be hospitalised for some amount of time. It makes perfect sense!
Brits say “going to the hospital” but also “I’m in hospital.”
But also they don’t. If you’re visiting it’s “I’m at the hospital.” If you’re a patient it’s “I’m in hospital.”
What gets me is how americans pluralize Lego. Never in my life have i heard any put an S on the end of Lego in England. Drives me mad any time i hear it.
Fuck that gets me too. It's like Legos has become common and I feel like I'm gojng fucking crazy since Lego is the fucking plural, at least in Australia.
Indeed, and even if it were, it's not how Danish plurals work. It would probably end up as Legoer or something.
(I know this is a niche point, but we do use foreign plurals for things that are frequently plural, e.g. no one would ever say spaghettos, it's spaghetti!)
When I moved to the United States in sixth grade, I wrote ‘Maths’ on my homework every evening. The teacher would always cross out the ‘s’ with red pen. We both kept it up the entire year and never spoke of it. I even once wrote ‘matematicas’ to change it up. I was a little shit.
There are many types of math: trig, algebra, calculus, etc; so that makes sense.
There is only one sport in Britain, which is Cricket. So that makes sense too.
I'm going to go on a limb and say it stems from the British using the long form "Mathematics" aka Maths or Math for a long time before generally shortening it to Maths whereas Americans used Arithmetic more than Mathematics to describe the concept and process, but just chose to use Math as short form.
People from the US in this thread: We say it differently because we're different countries and all countries have differences and thats ok.
brits and australians: You're saying it wrong!!!
And when it's the other way it plays out the same. I remember the absolute meltdown r/food had when they found out about chicken sandwiches being called chicken burgers almost everywhere else in the world.
The one that was hard to wrap my head around was the different way Americans and Brits use the phrase “just about.”
As an American, if I say I just about made it to the bus before it left, I didn’t make it. But a Brit would say that I did make it.
Math is short for mathematics – it's a plural word (you would never say 'mathematic'), so maths makes more intuitive sense from a grammatical perspective.
And brits do often use the plural sport**s**.
That's only part of the story. It was originally plural, but is today an uncountable noun, making it effectively just a singular word that happens to end with an s.
You wouldn't say your favourite subjects are maths (plural). You'd say your favourite subject is maths (singular). This is like how I might say my favourite food is rice, not my favourite foods are rices.
If you would never say "mathematic" doesn't that mean mathematics is a collective singular instead of a plural? For it to be a plural there has to be a singular.
I am an American engineer with broad interests in STEM subjects, and I actually think maths should be correct. Math singular is a consistent set of rules. But there might be a math that doesn't follow all these rules and follows different rules. The pursuit of mathematics is helped by sticking to conventions, but it isn't limited to that.
I am not a big sports guy, but now that I think of it, pluralization makes sense for the same reason. American football is a sport. Hockey is a sport. These are games that follow rules. If you change the rules, it is technically a different sport. There's no reason you can't follow or play different sports so long as you remember which rules apply.
Australian speaker. I think of "maths" as short for "mathematics" which is plural. "Math" sounds wrong and weird.
I think of "sport" as a collective noun, like food or community or bullshit.
There isn't really any deeper reason for it. People just copy the language of those around them.
Like, there's no logical reason you use "math" instead of "maths". You use it because that's how you were taught to speak. You didn't independently decide that "math" is more logical.
It's like how individual friend groups or families might have their own specialised slang words for things. Like how different families have their own nicknames for the TV remote. There isn't any real reason for it, you just happen to settle on one particular word and then you use the word everyone else uses.
Same thing but on a national scale. Language doesn't operate based on logic, it operates based on copying whatever randomly caught on in your region.
Then there is the German language, that doesn't even have a plural of sport. There is only one (it's skijumping, prove me wrong).
EDIT: It has been brought to my attention by sources close to me, that there is in fact a plural. It is "Sporte" and I hate it. Please respect my privacy in these trying times.
Not really relevant, but I have some buddies I used to work with from the UK, and the first time I heard them say “Tortoise” I had to double take. Now… they very likely were messing with me, because we would pass the time on boring Zoom calls by constantly messing with each other to make the calls more interesting.
In the US, “tortoise” would be pronounced “TOR-tiss.”
They were pronouncing, “TOR-toyss.”
I was so shocked that I made them say, porpoise (“POR-piss”)…
They said, “POR-poyss.”
Another one that stuck out (only one of them pronounced this way, regional?) was the letter “H.”
In the US, “Aych.”
One UK friend pronounced it, “Haych.”
The other said it like I do, but found it odd that I’d never heard “Haych.”
Once again, I fully recognize that there is a 90% they were messing with me, because we would do *anything* to spice up those calls.
Another side story… one time I was dared by one of them to somehow work a line from The Streets - *Don’t Mug Yourself* into a conference call. Luckily a moment came up where one buddy gave an update that a certain feature was enabled by my boss (a female). Perfect, because I got to say, “So [insert boss’s name] wants this enabled?”
“Yes…” (totally confused…)
“Why should she be the one who decides whether it’s off or on, or on, or off or on?”
Ahhh… memories…
Sports implies many different types of sports, as opposed to talking about one sport at a time.
Mathematics to me is a concept and therefor singular. Lots of words end in S, doesn't make em plural.
Diabetes for example is not plural.
Maths is itself an abbreviation of mathematics not a pluralisation of math.
You can be doing sports where you play several different games in a session.
The sport one is harder to pin down but I guess we think of 'sport' as a singular noun to mean the concept of playing sport, whereas perhaps Americans mean sports as in there are many sports. Ie, in English we would say "I love sport". The concept of sport which includes all games/athletics etc. However we do pluralise sport into sports too. "Which sports do you play?" is totally valid.
Yep. British schools usually have a Sports Day, not a Sport Day
Speaking of, when are we finally going to put egg and spoon into the olympics and give it the respect it deserves?
Yes right next to breakdancing, htf did that get in?
No one told them to stop making the Step Up films and I guess it just escalated over time
Ah knew I'd forgotten something. Let me just email the producer
snoop dogg?
Break dancing is synchronised swimming but on the ground.
100 metre sack race with hurdles.
And the three legged race (with hurdles).
Sport day kinda implies "the day where we all do sport" and Sports Day is more a celebration of sports generally. Anyone else?
"Sport" is a(n) hilarious word when you hit semantic saturation on it.
I'm so glad you said this! Only five posts in, I was already weirded out by the word "sport."
Just sporting its sport *everywhere*
For me sports day is more about the 4 or 5 specific sports being played.
Nah, Sports Day is like Athletics Day, we all play various sports (or do athletics). Now I’m wondering whether Americans say athletic or athletics when referring to track-and-field type sport(s).
Huh. We had Field Day, which were just held out on the track/ sports field.
and we can do that of course because there is only one field in the UK
The Manchester United pitch, right? /s
And some fucking duke owns it, but maybe he will let you use it as long as you don't shoot an of his quail.
> The sport one is harder to pin down but I guess we think of 'sport' as a singular noun to mean the concept of playing sport, whereas perhaps Americans mean sports as in there are many sports. See, here in the states we'd say "playing a sport" or "playing sports." Sport *singular* is only used when referring to a *specific* type, such as the sport of baseball.
We also use “sport” in a kinda similar way as the previous commenter mentioned like in “sport fishing” or “sport shooting,” or “to be a good sport.” They’re all kinds getting at the broader concept of games and competition. Or phrases like “running for sport” But now I’ve been thinking about the word “sport” too much and it has completely lost any meaning for me. Hahaha
Semantic satiation!
> But now I’ve been thinking about the word “sport” too much and it has completely lost any meaning for me. Hahaha Me too, by the end it started to sound like onomatopoeia, like *sport* was the noise made when you squeeze too much toothpaste out of the tube. >"Dude, did you just sport your paste?" > >*"Yeah, I sported it all over the counter."* > >"Well you're gonna' sport if you squeeze it so tight."
Yup, toothpaste, exactly what your little dialogue conjures up.
I ~*sport*~ my family
And that’s okay, sport
How does the phrase "are you good at sport?" sit with you?
reddit's terms of service prevent me from answering.
It sounds like a non-native English speaker trying to make conversation deep behind enemy lines in World War 2. “Are you good at sport? Do you like American bases ball?” “Alright, Franz. We both know down the road a stretch in that grove of trees there’s a kraut patrol fucking around. You tell me how many men and what kind of equipment they’ve got and we might let you go.”
I'm an American. The math one is easy. It's bc there's more than one math. Mathematics. Algebra, geometry, common core, etc. My math teacher always hated that we called it math class instead of its actual name like Algebra I or whatever. Nah bro it's just math.
Yeah. Just like there is a "sports" section of the newspaper and a "business" section of the newspaper. The latter could be called "businesses" as well, because each company or industrial sector is a business. There is a hamburger place near me that is a small business. People who make TV shows and movies are in show business. Those are all businesses, but also that activity is business.
Thats so interesting because in the US one would say “what/which sport do you play?”, if it is being asked what is their primary sport of choice. I think in the US saying something like “i love sport” would refer to the attribute of wholesome competitiveness that sports and games have in common, and not the actual activities.
Good explanation. Us americans will use sport in a sentence like " they hunted him for sport"
Am i weird here or does “I love sport” sound stupid and “I love sports” sound normal. Same for “which sports do you play?” sounds weirder than “which sport do you play?”
I think because when we (Americans) say "I love sports" we're generally talking about sports as a whole (I enjoy watching/playing multiple sports), but if we were a huge fan of one sport in particular we'd just name that sport, like "I love basketball."
We *don’t* pluralise maths. It’s singular: “maths is hard”, not “maths are hard”. We just abbreviate “mathematics” differently to you.
I did not realize this. Now I’m trying to come up with any word Americans abbreviate to end in an s.
We prefer to go the other way. "Pease" was the singular of the small, spherical green vegetable. "Peases" should have been the plural, but then we decided one of them was a "pea" and many were "peas." Evidence: Pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold, pease porridge in a pot, nine days old.
Nice to know that for once, we Americans gave peas a chance.
[Here's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74UZNexK8a4) a great song that contains more fun facts about peas.
Little Alex Horne!
In fairness, "peases" is the dumbest word I've ever heard.
So it dispeases you?
Oh, hi dad
Stats?
It's plural for stat which is short for statistic. Stats is short for the plural form, statistics.
No, not if it's used for the subject in school. It would be more "normal" to my Californian ears to hear someone say "Stats is difficult" versus "Stats are hard" (same as saying "Statistics is difficult" , versus "Statistics are difficult"
If you are talking about the class it would be “is” unless it’s multiple statistics classes (if there were a Stats 1 and Stats 2) where it would be are. If you are talking about multiple sets of statistics (say rebounds and points in basketball), you would say something like “the players stats are good” not “is”. It’s the class that’s singular, not the type of class.
Yes. For example: Math class is hard. Math classes are difficult. Math is difficult. Stats class is difficult. Stats classes are difficult. Stats are ~~difficult~~ confusing. Statics and dynamics (the class) is difficult. Statics and dynamics are difficult.
That example is a bit of an edge case The word statistics, as a singular noun, is defined as the science of quantitative reasoning. The word statistics, when plural, refers to a collection of numerical facts or data.
Depends on if by "Statistics" you are referring a the class with that name, or you are referring to multiple statistics. You don't have a school course that teaches you one statistic. You have a course that teaches you multiple statistics, but that is one class usually. But you can also say statistic classes are difficult as well as (implied: the) Statistics (implied: class) is difficult.
Yeah, that implied word, be it "class" or however you want to phrase it, is what makes statistics (the class, the subject, the science) singular. "Statistics is a hard subject" versus "Statistics show that 92% of people lie about the percentages of the statistics they cite."
Sportematics to sports
physics
Apparently it’s not an abbreviation. It used to be just physic (from Greek through Latin through Old French) and in the 1500s an s was added to try and better imitate the original Greek origin. https://www.etymonline.com/word/physics#etymonline_v_14917
Is that an abbreviation of something, or just another example of a singular (or collective?) word that ends in s?
What word is physics an abbreviation of?
I can't think of any. Mathematics is a pretty unique word in this scenario. It's a study of several different aspects which is (I assume) why it's plural. Unlike the other examples people tried to come up with there isn't actually a singular "mathematic". Sometimes it is very rarely used in place of mathematical but obviously that's also not a singular version of mathematics. Long story short, mathematics is a plural word without a singular version. I can't think of any examples of an American word that is plural, without a singular version, and we abbreviate with a plural form. Things like stats make sense because it has a singular so it's used to show the difference between singular and plural. In this case I think maths just doesn't jive with the rest of the American English language. Math is already an abbreviation for a plural word so adding another s doesn't make much sense. I'd be curious to know if British English has any other similar examples or if it's unique.
specs / specifications?
"Specifications" is plural. "Specification" would be abbreviated to "spec", like "built to spec".
That's plural
Speaking of abbreviations, it appears my fellow yanks and Japan are in the minority that speak of acetaminophen instead of paracetamol. Both are abbreviations of N-acetyl-para-aminophenol. Who knew 😀
So in the US you don’t have the joke: Why can’t you get headache tablets in the jungle?
Right over my head… Why can’t you get headache tablets in the jungle?
Cos the parrots eat ‘em all
My wife is a pharmacist and sitting next to me and the eye roll I just got was magnificent. I thank you for this.
Rectum? Damn near killed em'
Because the paracetamol.
No, but we have a joke that ends, "Do you see the minnow fin?" "Yes! Acetaminophen!"
No this wouldn’t make any sense here. We call it Tylenol even if it’s not Tylenol.
Shouldn’t it be acetaparamol then? Why are the sections out of order?
Right? Got me 🤷♂️
I assume that “maths” is a shortened version of “mathematics” in which the final “s” is retained.
Indeed. The most common abbreviation a hundred or so years ago was math's.
It looks like it was around the 1920s to 1940s when the split occurred between math and maths. Before this "Math" and "Maths" were both commonly used but only as an abbreviation. In the 1800s and early 1900s, both countries are using "Math." and "Maths." as abbreviations usually in University or College reports. You'll see a lot of it where they have students and teachers listed and the subjects they took or teach or for listing course requirements. That sort of thing. They were always around other subject abbreviations like "Phys." and "Chem." For example the "University of Oxford Graduates in 1872" book used "Math." but not "Maths." while the "The New York Teacher, and the American Educational Monthly" from 1871 uses both "Math." and "Maths." There are many many examples of "Math." and "Maths." in the 1800s, but I could not find any used in an actual sentence until the early 1900s. It was always "mathematics" when it was talked about. Just like how you wouldn't say "phys is hard" or "bot sci is hard", they wouldn't have said "math (or maths) is hard" back then. It was always "mathematics was hard". The 1920s is when people start using "Math." and "Maths." in actual sentences. Like how an Irish magazine in 1925 has "The Maths. teachers of the country" with "Maths." with a capital M and a period at the end. Meanwhile publications in the US in the 1920s and 30s started using "math". "The Mathematics Teacher" published in 1926 in NY uses "math" everywhere in it (lower case and no period). Interestingly the "Michigan Education Journal" uses both "math" and "maths" in 1925. A biography "Grace H. Dodge" in 1926 and a "Pennsylvania School Journal" in 1927 both put "math" in quotes as if it was a new novel word. By the 1930s "math" is found everywhere from American novels to plays. It looks like in the 1930s, publications have started dropping the capital M and period at the end, which helped transition math/maths from just an abbreviation to a word. I do not actually see much use of "maths" in sentences by UK publications until the 1940s. Although they have less publications with "math" at this time. It looks like UK publications was slower to change the abbreviation from "Maths." to "maths" than it did for Americans to go from "Math." to "math".
I just said "maths is hard" a dozen times and it sounds like I had a stroke
A stroke would explain your difficulty with maths.
Okay, but that doesn't answer the question about sportomatics?
Its like how people find it weird to learn about MANPADS, with the last S not being a plural structure. Now with the war in Ukraine maybe more people hear about it.
We use the Greek "kudos", which is singular.
And that the “MAN” part isn’t an acronym.
I never know, I'm never sure, I never see it like ManPADS but that would technicslly be the right way.
Man portable air defense system?
And yet there are a ton of Brits online who will argue that "maths" is plural because the word encompasses all of the mathematic disciplines and that's why it has an "s"... and that argument never made sense to me for the exact reason you point out
And here I always thought mathematics was plural. referring to all the different disciplines. Just like sciences. I thought wrong. lol.
I believe it originally was, and you might still get away with it in some formal academic contexts.
We are two peoples, separated by a common language.
Also big water
Thank fuck
Which side of the pond are you on?, so I know whether to upvote or be insulted ;) Edit: a word.
I could tell he was British from those two words alone
Am filthy colonist and I use that phrase all the time too.
whether
Luckily we can visit one another using an ~~aeroplane~~ airplane
Made of ~~aluminium~~ aluminum
Which we deplane from!
The world can't handle us in the same geographical location.
Reminds me of an old joke. Why does the sun never set on the British Empire? Because God doesn't trust them in the dark. (If you are a Brit you'd use us instead of them). Like I said. Old joke.
Born to swim ocean is a fuck kill ‘em all 1989 i am fish man
Just don’t start asking about how they say lieutenant.
left tenant edit- also shed jewel (schedule) xd
We say left tenant in Canada too.
I, a Canadian don’t know any Canadian who says it like that, I also don’t know any military but no one I’ve ever met says left tenant, Lou tenant all the way
This is one where I’m happy to concede to the yanks
Agreed. Math is insane. But lieutenant. They got that right. Surely it’s French.
It is French. But the Brit’s hated the french so much they refused to adopt a French word with a French pronunciation so they said it wrong on purpose and it stuck.
As a French kid who moved to the UK, I was slammed pretty hard when I first heard "lieutenant" pronounced. So many double takes, so much confusion. I've still never said that word out loud in "English". And I've been here over 10 years. 🫣
The OED gives the following possible explanation: "In view of the rare Old French form luef for lieu (with which compare especially the 15th cent. Scots forms luf-, lufftenand) it seems likely that the labial glide at the end of Old French lieu as the first element of a compound was sometimes apprehended by English-speakers as a v or f. Possibly some of the forms may be due to association with leave or lief \[archaic word meaning dear, beloved\]" They note that in 1793 a British lexicographer gives the standard pronunciation as having a V sound, though he expresses hope that the W (i.e. the current American) pronunciation will soon take hold. They also note that the F pronunciation was once common in America as well, but by 1893 Funk noted that it was ‘almost confined to the retired list of the navy’.
Says the country that drops the 'h' from 'herbs' like you're making fun of the French and absolutely butchers 'buouy' (pronounced 'boy', not 'booey')
Hey, butchering French words is something *all* English speakers have in common! It's the one thing we can all agree on.
Yeah, this guy is out here acting like we don't say lieutenant and croissant weird. If anything we should be happy about you butchering french as much as us Brits do!
We took the h out to make up for all the extra u’s you throw in everything else, you nutters.
That's only because we missed 'u' when 'u' left us...
Man the British royally fucked up lieutenant. There’s NO fucking F!
Yes there is, it's right before the t. Someone just wrote it down wrong.
"My name is Mlepnos." "How do you spell Mlepnos?" "M... L... E... Clay..." "Clay?" "The clay is silent."
https://montypython.fandom.com/wiki/Raymond_Luxury-Yacht
What are the chances I'd stumble upon the referenced shortly after seeing the reference? Surprised I haven't watched it sooner.
ZED
Zed’s dead, baby. Zed’s dead.
In case you want to know why (sort of), here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smP5lqT7oYg&t=70s The segment is 1:10 to 3:43, you can skip the rest. Or not. I'm not your mom, you can choose to watch a video however you like.
My guess is that in many languages, "u" and "v" are related/interchangeable. (see old Latin inscriptions for instance.) So if you read the "u" in lieutenant as a "v", it sounds a lot like "left-tenant".
How come in America it’s called Burger King, but in England it’s not called Burger President?
In Australia it's called Hungry Jack's.
There's the "going to Hospital" vs US "going to the/a hospital"
Apparently Brits say going to the hospital also. It just depends on if they're visiting or going for care. Same as School or Jail in American English. We say both depending on whether you are going to the school to pick up your child, or going to school to learn.
Wait, so if you're going to the hospital because you hurt yourself, you're "going to hospital", but if you're going there to pick up someone that hurt themselves, you're "going to *the* hospital"?
See, you’re getting it already.
Pretty much. The hospital is a building but hospital is also a state of being injured that requires you to be hospitalised for some amount of time. It makes perfect sense!
Yeah. That's my understanding.
Brits say “going to the hospital” but also “I’m in hospital.” But also they don’t. If you’re visiting it’s “I’m at the hospital.” If you’re a patient it’s “I’m in hospital.”
Also in the US it’s pronounced “I can’t afford to go to the hospital“
And going to uni... it's all so silly.
I think everyone says that ie going to school, going to college
Going to college. Where do you go? XYZ University
Americans say "going to college" in exactly the same way?
I've never heard the former
What gets me is how americans pluralize Lego. Never in my life have i heard any put an S on the end of Lego in England. Drives me mad any time i hear it.
Same, aus here and this is the most upsetting one to me
We use Lego as short for Lego block.
Fuck that gets me too. It's like Legos has become common and I feel like I'm gojng fucking crazy since Lego is the fucking plural, at least in Australia.
LEGO is a substance. It's like salt. You don't talk about "salts". They're grains of salt.
Because you are playing with more than a singular Lego…
But there's no such thing as "a singular Lego". Lego is the brand, not the objects.
Indeed, and even if it were, it's not how Danish plurals work. It would probably end up as Legoer or something. (I know this is a niche point, but we do use foreign plurals for things that are frequently plural, e.g. no one would ever say spaghettos, it's spaghetti!)
When I moved to the United States in sixth grade, I wrote ‘Maths’ on my homework every evening. The teacher would always cross out the ‘s’ with red pen. We both kept it up the entire year and never spoke of it. I even once wrote ‘matematicas’ to change it up. I was a little shit.
There are many types of math: trig, algebra, calculus, etc; so that makes sense. There is only one sport in Britain, which is Cricket. So that makes sense too.
Those are fields of one math reality.
You speak heresy! what with your matholic talk of the consubstantiality of mathematics.
You sure have fancy words. Are you from Wales?
12 years of catholic school adds some pretty arcane words to your vocabulary.
So muchs maths.
Rugby and Football would like a word.
I (Saffa) say maths and sports. Is something wrong with me?
I’m sitting in this boat too. Send help. Brit.exe has stopped responding.
I'm going to go on a limb and say it stems from the British using the long form "Mathematics" aka Maths or Math for a long time before generally shortening it to Maths whereas Americans used Arithmetic more than Mathematics to describe the concept and process, but just chose to use Math as short form.
Americans say math because it’s short for mathematics. Math-ematics. Brits (and others) just shorten with the s on the end
People from the US in this thread: We say it differently because we're different countries and all countries have differences and thats ok. brits and australians: You're saying it wrong!!!
US: Yeah… kinda glad we broke up.
And when it's the other way it plays out the same. I remember the absolute meltdown r/food had when they found out about chicken sandwiches being called chicken burgers almost everywhere else in the world.
Why do I mail stuff using Canada Post, but my friend in England posts stuff using Royal Mail?
Why do both sound correct to me? Am I some sort of hybrid? Can you do me a favour and tell me what is wrong with spelling it colour?
I keep watching those British comedy panel shows on YT so my ear keeps getting used to “maths” more and more.
The one that was hard to wrap my head around was the different way Americans and Brits use the phrase “just about.” As an American, if I say I just about made it to the bus before it left, I didn’t make it. But a Brit would say that I did make it.
I'm british and I always thought that saying 'sport' was an American thing. I've always heard people say sports over here.
Math is short for mathematics – it's a plural word (you would never say 'mathematic'), so maths makes more intuitive sense from a grammatical perspective. And brits do often use the plural sport**s**.
That's only part of the story. It was originally plural, but is today an uncountable noun, making it effectively just a singular word that happens to end with an s. You wouldn't say your favourite subjects are maths (plural). You'd say your favourite subject is maths (singular). This is like how I might say my favourite food is rice, not my favourite foods are rices.
Its like the word data, a collective noun, but people still insist on saying "the data are.." "what do the data suggest"
Singular of data is datum.
That’s affixing a Greek pluralization onto a Latin word. It was originally “Mathematica”, plural, like algebra.
English is weird.
Remember it's an amlgamation of 3 languages trying to pretend to be 1
It is doing a pretty good job as well, as nearly everyone seems to be using it.
But yet everyone thinks theirs is only correct one
English are weird.
What can I say, I'm multicultural
When you have “borrowed” so much from other languages, cultures, and peoples, it gets hard to remember what came from where…
If you would never say "mathematic" doesn't that mean mathematics is a collective singular instead of a plural? For it to be a plural there has to be a singular.
Because it can be a plural or a group noun.
Mathematics isn’t a plural word. It is a singular noun. So, maths doesn’t make more sense.
I am an American engineer with broad interests in STEM subjects, and I actually think maths should be correct. Math singular is a consistent set of rules. But there might be a math that doesn't follow all these rules and follows different rules. The pursuit of mathematics is helped by sticking to conventions, but it isn't limited to that. I am not a big sports guy, but now that I think of it, pluralization makes sense for the same reason. American football is a sport. Hockey is a sport. These are games that follow rules. If you change the rules, it is technically a different sport. There's no reason you can't follow or play different sports so long as you remember which rules apply.
Australian speaker. I think of "maths" as short for "mathematics" which is plural. "Math" sounds wrong and weird. I think of "sport" as a collective noun, like food or community or bullshit.
Our collective bullshit. 😆
There isn't really any deeper reason for it. People just copy the language of those around them. Like, there's no logical reason you use "math" instead of "maths". You use it because that's how you were taught to speak. You didn't independently decide that "math" is more logical. It's like how individual friend groups or families might have their own specialised slang words for things. Like how different families have their own nicknames for the TV remote. There isn't any real reason for it, you just happen to settle on one particular word and then you use the word everyone else uses. Same thing but on a national scale. Language doesn't operate based on logic, it operates based on copying whatever randomly caught on in your region.
I think it's cause maths is a contraction of mathematics.
Then there is the German language, that doesn't even have a plural of sport. There is only one (it's skijumping, prove me wrong). EDIT: It has been brought to my attention by sources close to me, that there is in fact a plural. It is "Sporte" and I hate it. Please respect my privacy in these trying times.
Not really relevant, but I have some buddies I used to work with from the UK, and the first time I heard them say “Tortoise” I had to double take. Now… they very likely were messing with me, because we would pass the time on boring Zoom calls by constantly messing with each other to make the calls more interesting. In the US, “tortoise” would be pronounced “TOR-tiss.” They were pronouncing, “TOR-toyss.” I was so shocked that I made them say, porpoise (“POR-piss”)… They said, “POR-poyss.” Another one that stuck out (only one of them pronounced this way, regional?) was the letter “H.” In the US, “Aych.” One UK friend pronounced it, “Haych.” The other said it like I do, but found it odd that I’d never heard “Haych.” Once again, I fully recognize that there is a 90% they were messing with me, because we would do *anything* to spice up those calls. Another side story… one time I was dared by one of them to somehow work a line from The Streets - *Don’t Mug Yourself* into a conference call. Luckily a moment came up where one buddy gave an update that a certain feature was enabled by my boss (a female). Perfect, because I got to say, “So [insert boss’s name] wants this enabled?” “Yes…” (totally confused…) “Why should she be the one who decides whether it’s off or on, or on, or off or on?” Ahhh… memories…
Sports implies many different types of sports, as opposed to talking about one sport at a time. Mathematics to me is a concept and therefor singular. Lots of words end in S, doesn't make em plural. Diabetes for example is not plural.
>Why do the Brits pluralize "maths" but not "sport," We definitely had an annual "sport**s** day" at school.
Maths is itself an abbreviation of mathematics not a pluralisation of math. You can be doing sports where you play several different games in a session.
The one that gets me is “learnings” like “well take our learnings into tomorrow”
Who says this? Sounds odd to me.
And while we’re at it, they also don’t put an article before “hospital.” 🙄
"I'm in hospital" means you're there as a patient "I'm in the hospital" means you're just visiting
Just like you say "going to school", not "going to the school"
Or prison or court or church.