Simple Maths

[Buenchico]

Wolf63 seems to be in the mood for maths tonight, so here's proof that 7 x 13 = 28 ;-)

[Ellipsis]

Looks like many an AB debate ...

[sanmac]

Oi, Buenchico, that's American, so knock off that superfluous irritating British 's'...It's simple math:)

[Buenchico]

I think you might well have a point there, Ellipsis ;-)

The language is called 'English', Sanmac, not 'American'. It's not our fault if people on your side of the Atlantic can't spell ;-)

[THECORBYLOON]

"Math" pre-dates "maths" by about sixty year so we're the ones who changed it.

[wolf63]

I think that their way of counting is much more confusing than using my fingers. ☺☺

I used to calculate payments of benefits using my fingers.

[novalis]

George Bernard Shaw said of U.K. and U.S.A. ;Two countries separated by a common language'.

[sanmac]

Anyway, regardless of the terminology, that was a well thought-out skit.

[Buenchico]

>>> I used to calculate payments of benefits using my fingers

So that's why the DWP kept getting my JSA payments wrong then!

;-)

[Tuvok]

youtube.com/watch?v=W6OaYPVueW4

[wolf63]

to make it worser and worser - towards the end of my employment I was very mentally unstable and my job was calculating overpaid benefits, sometimes for prosecution.

That was when we parted company - and I got my pension.
☺☺☺

[Buenchico]

Thanks for simplifying things, Tuvok. It's many a long year since I last came across Tom Lehrer's beautiful explanation of new math(s).
;-)

Embedding that for you:

[Buenchico]

^^^ Blast! It won't embed!

Oh well, people can still click on 'Watch on YouTube', I suppose ;-)

[Buenchico]

You've provided clear proof, Wolf3, that 'acting mad' can be extremely good for a person ;-)

[Old_Geezer]

If, as mentioned "Math" pre-dates "maths" by about sixty years, "mathematics" was always surely the case ? In which case it took one lot a while to notice the plural 's' and correct the error. We await the other lot to catch up soon.

[New Judge]

I don't agree that the 's' denotes the plural of mathematic. There is no such thing as a "mathematic." Similarly, the 's' on the end of "logistics" does not denote more than one logistic. These two words are nouns in their own right, not the plural form of something singular. This can be seen as they take the singular version of verbs. e.g. "Mathematics is a subject I hated at school." You don't say "Mathematics are subjects I hated at school."

Some schools of thought see "mathematics" as a "mass nouns" - these are nouns that denote an uncountable substance (e.g. water) that cannot be quantified by numbers alone. You cannot say "1 water or 2 waters", you have to say "1 litre of water or 2 litres of water".

I don't see mathematics as one of those. I see it as a singular noun in its own right that happens to end with an 's'. Since both "Maths" and the alternative "Math" are abbreviations, it's really a matter of convention as to how Mathematics is shortened. My view is that in the UK, "Maths" is the accepted convention. I know when I see "Math" I often remark "Just the one Math then?" I'm not really suggesting that Maths is a plural, just highlighting what I see as an unconventional abbreviation (which I happen to find extremely irritating) being used.