Subject: [HM] new tact for math vs maths
From: Stephen B Maurer (smaurer1@swarthmore.edu)
Date: Wed Mar 29 2000 - 14:58:53 EST
I'd like to head the discussion of "math" vs "maths" in a somewhat
different direction. I'd like to know: to what extent do list members feel
these words have moved towards acceptance in more formal writing (a very
common but slow linguistic drift for useful shortenings). I'd be
interested in how list members use these words in their own writing, and
what usage they perceive by others.
I'll start the ball rolling. Being in the US, I will restrict my remarks to
"math".
First, it is simply not true (as one participant claimed) that "math" is
used only for high school and earlier. Think of
math professor
math majors
discrete math
Second, for me at least, "math" is fine in all but the most formal writing.
To check this perception of myself, I did a search of my published
textbook "Discrete Algorithmic Mathematics". (This happens to be the one
book I have in searchable electronic form on my computer.) I found that I
used "math" 30 times and "mathematics" 180 times. In tht book, "math"
appears in the phrases above and in
math books
math class
math teacher
math course
math notation
Note that the publisher didn't object, or these uses wouldn't have seen print.
On the other hand, I have met people who strongly object to using "math" in
writing. I remember being at a conference 20 years ago to write a position
paper about improving math education, and one conference attendee got very
angry that the first draft used just that phrase. Also, I've just had an
article accepted in the Mathematics Teacher, in which my few uses of "math"
were all edited to "mathematics".
The one usage of "math" that I don't like is "do the math", as in a student
saying
I understand the concepts but I just can't do the math.
What I object to is the dichotomy between thinking and carrying out the
computations, and the assumption that math is only the latter. But it is
not really the word I am objecting to, but rather the attitude. I would
object just as strongly to "do the mathematics", but people don't say that.
Steve Maurer
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