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Tuesday 23 April 2024

Why do British people say "maths" instead of math?

Why do British people say "maths" instead of math and spell "colour" instead of color?

The USA chose to use the English language. Indigenous languages were not spoken by European colonisers and English was simply the most popular choice.

However, This is Noah Webster:


He was an American who decided he would change the language to make it easier for him, and publish it in his dictionary. Sadly, what seemed like an easy spelling reform causes massive problems to this day with differences in spelling between the UK and US.

He made changes such as:

colour → color

defence → defense

traveller → traveler

cheque → check

He also hated re and sought to replace it with er:

Centre → Center

Metre → Meter

He also changed tongue to tung, but that never caught on!

Maths vs Math is because Maths is short for plural mathematics. In British English, we shortened it and kept the plural. In American English, they dropped the plural when they shortened it.

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