I was castigated recently by a Brit for the nonsensical nature of saying math when the long form is mathematics , so any explanation you can provide on that front would certainly put my mind to rest.

maths

math

Mathematics

maths

-s

premise

premiss

-s

mathematics

-s

can

can of Coke

I can go

can

-s

suffix function example -s plural one cup > two cup s -s present tense, 3rd sg

verb agreement I run > he run s -s adverbial marker unaware (Adj) > unaware s (Adv) -s noun marker linguistic (Adj) > linguistic s (N)

(I've left out the possessive suffix 's , because it has some complicated properties that aren't relevant here.)

-s

-es

-as

eth

-ath

's

-s

-(r)en

children

oxen

sheep

fish

one sheep, two sheep

-s

mathematics

-s

-s

Journal of American Folklore

-s

folkloristics

folkloristics

folkloristics

*folkloristicses

-s

mathematics

folkloristics

mathematics

*one mathematic *two mathematics *a mathematic some mathematics



Mathematics

-s

cinnamon

boredom

*cinnamons

types of

*boredoms

two teaspoons of cinnamon

three episodes of boredom

three theories of mathematics

three mathematics classes

three mathematics

-s

-s

-s

is

has

-s



singular subject plural subject The idea please s me. The ideas please_ me. Mathematics please s me. ??Mathematics please_ me.

Mathematics please me

mathematics

-s

maths

Math

maths

s.

linguistics

ling

Lings Department

maths

linguistics, folkloristics

(physics

-s

-s

-s

you do the maths

you do the math

maths

References

As promised in the comments of my last post , this post pulls together and expands upon discussions that have come up more than once in comments on other posts and e-mails to me. Back in July , Ahab wrote:Castigation is common on theissue, and the castigation is usually British to American. So, I'm going to castigate a bit in the other direction, because there's absolutely no reason whyshould be considered to be more correct thanThe castigation usually goes: "is plural, soneeds its." It's a logic based on a false (AmE)/(BrE often). Just because there's anat the end ofdoesn't mean it's plural. The suffixis homonymous . Homonymy is when the same lexical forms (i.e. words or affixes ) have unrelated meanings/functions. That is to say, it's when two words/affixes just happen to be pronounced/spelt the same. So,is a homonymbecause either it can refer to a kind of container () or it can be a modal verb (). Those twos are completely unrelated. Similarly, there are several suffixes with different meanings/functions that all coincidentally have the formHow do we know that these are really different affixes, and not just the same affix doing a range of jobs? Partly we know from history. The pluralcomes from an Old English case suffix (or). The verb one has derived from the suffix -(or) in earlier Englishes. The adverbial one is related to the possessive. And our friend the nominali{s/z}ing (=noun-making) suffix generally affixes to roots from classical Greek. (See comments for further discussion.)These suffixes differ in their productivity -- that is, how regularly/predictably one finds them in contexts where they could, in principle, go. The first two are very productive--although there can be exceptions in which they are not used. That is, whileis the most productive plural marker in English, it's not the only plural marker--we also haveinandand a zero (invisible) suffix onand).The last two in the table are not very productive at all, and the last one is thewe find in. Because we have a very productive and common pluraland a not so productive/common nominali{s/z}ing, people often mistake the less productive suffix for the more common suffix. This has raised such a debate in the field of folkloristics that no fewer than three articles inhave addressed the finalin. [See References, below.] In one, Bruce Jackson callsa noun with 'no existence as a noun in the singular', but he's corrected by Dan Ben-Amos, who says thatis instead a singular noun with no existence in the plural. (Note that there is no.)How can we tell whether or not thisis marking a plural inand? We do so by seeing whether the words trigger plural behavio(u)r in other words in the sentence. A first test might be whether you can count(* means 'ungrammatical'):doesn't work with numbers because it's not a countable noun, it's a mass noun. That is, it does not take plural marking because it is not the kind of thing one can or does count. Similar examples (without the confusing) on the end areand. Note that you don't talk of puttingin your food (unless you're making the point that they are differentcinnamon--which is a different matter), nor does one sufferif the boredom happened at different times. Cinnamon and boredom are treated as masses with undistinguishable (or at least not-worth-distinguishing), and therefore uncountable, parts. If we want to make such words countable, we have to use another noun to do so:. Similarly, you can haveor, but not *The third person, singular present tenseverb suffix (the secondin the table above) provides another test of singularity. If the subject of a verb is singular, then the verb needs the(or the equivalent in an irregular verb likeor), but if the subject is plural, it can't have the. So:Now, some of you will say thatis what you'd say. This is the effect of the folk-belief thatis plural; it has started to change how people use the word. We see the same kind of language-change due to misapprehension of thesuffix in the short formis the older form--the OED has examples back to 1847, but examples ofonly from 1911.Another interesting point here is that you don't see the same kinds of abbreviations for other nouns with the nominali{s/z}ing -For example,when BrE or AmE speakers abbreviate, they tend to say. I've never heard anyone talk about theWhy isthe exception here? It probably has something to do with the fact that it's a much more common word, especially since it refers to a school subject. Because it's more common, it's subject to more folk-reasoning about it and more spread of that folk-reasoning. It also requires more frequent abbreviation than less common () and shorter) similar words. So, someone along the line misunderstands it as plural, starts using thein the abbreviation, and perhaps making it agree with plural verbs, and it spreads. It carries on because the belief thaton nouns is always a plural marker is a simpler belief to hold than thathas different functions on different nouns.Better Half has just run in from listening to A Prairie Home Companion , where he says that Garrison Keillor just said. (The AmE expression is usually.) We met Keillor (if it counts as a 'meeting' to have a book signed and make a little chit-chat about being an American abroad) in Brighton a couple of years ago, and in many ways you could say he's not a typical AmE speaker (even though he certainly trades on his down-home midwesternism), since he's lived abroad at various points in his life. But do let me know if you're a Minnesotan who believes this is one of Keillor's actual down-homeisms.Myself, I do tend to sayin BrE company, but only because it's so painful not to. Can you imagine if I had to say all of the above every time I was unjustly castigated?Ben-Amos, Dan. (1985)Hansen, Wm. F. (1987), 100: 305-307.Jackson, Bruce. (1985) Folkloristics., 98: 95-101.