tl;dr - From usage, 'mathematics' is singular (i.e., "My favorite subject is mathematics.", not 'are mathematics'). The reason 'mathematics' has an 's' at the end is that, at the time it was adopted from the French, English culture began concatenating the 's' to various fields (physics, linguistics), while earlier fields did not (arithmetic). The original form of 'mathematics' was actually 'mathematic' in French. Since mathematics is a collective noun, it only makes sense that its colloquialism would be as well. Thus, the singular, 'math'.
Dayal Purohit Mr. Adams was right after all ;)
ReplyDeleteWhat a pity it's mathS.
ReplyDeleteMr Adams was British, and we'd go with mathS.
ReplyDeleteHappy towel day, nonetheless!
Dayal Purohit is. It is singular, but happens to end in s, just like mathematics does.
ReplyDelete:-P
Christopher Smy Really? Singular? Wow! In my language is matemàtiques and we consider it a plural.
ReplyDeleteEveryone needs to calm down and read this: http://www.word-detective.com/2011/05/math-vs-maths/.
ReplyDeletetl;dr - From usage, 'mathematics' is singular (i.e., "My favorite subject is mathematics.", not 'are mathematics'). The reason 'mathematics' has an 's' at the end is that, at the time it was adopted from the French, English culture began concatenating the 's' to various fields (physics, linguistics), while earlier fields did not (arithmetic). The original form of 'mathematics' was actually 'mathematic' in French. Since mathematics is a collective noun, it only makes sense that its colloquialism would be as well. Thus, the singular, 'math'.
Yes, but it is a singular collection of fields.
ReplyDeleteLogan Collins In civilized languages it's plural, as in Latin, French, Catalan... :-)
ReplyDeleteOK...the grammar room just moved
ReplyDeleteAdios