Why do people type "maths"?

it comes from mathematics

Im an Aussie born and bred

Maths is an abbreviation for mathematics. As I see it, math would be an abbreviation for mathematic.

It's very hard for us to use the term math because it sounds really odd to our ears, like the word a child would use when learning to speak. No, it isn't a term used when it's translated from another language because it's the word we learn here in the UK. Some people here do talk about math but only if they have been influenced by american culture. You've posed a very interesting question and I admit to not really knowing the answer. I do have a feeling, however, that as I have said above, it is an abbreviation of the whole word and because it is a plural, the abbreviation is a plural too. Often common abbreviations are formed by taking letters from the start and end of a word, for example limited becomes ltd, so mathematics becomes maths. But if you are really asking why it is mathematics and not mathematic, my guess is that the subject is actually a joining of several different disciplines, ie calculus, trig etc, which are all loosely connected to each other since they all use numbers.

Probably because of the way it's used when fully spelled out -- "The English language" versus "Mathematics." Plus, mathematics is a much broader sort of subject than English, history, etc -- and "history" can but rarely is pluralized, mind you. English covers the English language, with specialized fields in writing, syntax, and so forth, whereas mathematics can be anything from algebra to calculus to trigonometry to abstract/pure math and so on and so on and so on. That's not even counting the gazillion fields in which mathematics can be applied (accounting, for instance).

So I would say that "math" is a general term whereas "maths" is probably used as a group term for all different sorts of math. I don't think it's a translation thing so much as it is grammatical. Of course this is my hypothetical guess - it could very well be an error/typo that has gained popularity, or it could be something else entirely. That's my best guess, though.

I am an Indian. English came to India from Britain. We learnt it systematically how to write a short form of a word. If you want to write any word in the short form, the last letter of the short form is the last letter of the word. Thus short of mathematics is maths. This short form is used in India. In American English Math is used. I do not know what short form is used in parts of the world other than India and USA.

Just because a word ends in -s doesn't mean it's plural.

"maths" is the short form used in Britain, and, as we see from the other answers, former British colonies, with the exception of the American colonies. It is among the many, many differences between British and American dialects of English.

It's not a pluralization of "math", but taken directly from "mathematics".

The -ics suffix comes from Greek and is also found in physics, optics, and various other words.

This page,

http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_uni...

and others, suggests its meaning is

"a suffix that forms nouns and is usually used to form names of arts and sciences".

That page also links to

http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_uni...

which is about the etymology of the word Mathematics.

There you will find the details of the history of word as it passed from Greek to Latin to French to English.

.

Isn't math an abbreviation for mathematics? Math's don't make sense.

Andreas A is right, its an abbreviation for mathematics.

I think it's an abbreviation for mathematics.

(I'm German)

mathematics. :)