Math or Maths

[Griffon64]

Also, math textbooks tend to be written by people who have no trouble understanding math. And we all know from software manuals how useless explanations can be when they come from somebody with a complete intuitive grasp of the material and no idea that anyone else is any different.

That's my main beef with all the math textbooks I've every met. I want to throw the book accross the room whenever "Proof of this is left as an exercise for the read" pops up in the text. It is usually just at the point when I REALLY could have done with the explanation, darnit!

I've churned out a software manual or two in my time, that looking back isn't worth the bits they occupied on my computer, never mind the paper to print them out. I've recently had to write another short manual for something I wrote, and I borrowed a bit from the informal writing style of the O'Reilley Perl textbooks. The users appreciate the manual. I also tried to go to pains to explain things step by step - it is helpful that I just recently tried to understand QuarkXPress and QuarkCopyDesk, and the manuals for THOSE are cryptic to the extreme, not to mention I'm trying to shift into the Mac metaphor at the same time!

Therefore, I currently have plenty of sympathy for anybody who struggles to learn from textbooks and manuals written by people who grasp things intuitively and think it is easy to learn, understand, and do complex things with ;P

Yeah, I do agree that different people learn in different ways. And there just isn't enough time or resources to teach everybody in the way they understand best I am a visual person myself when it comes to learning, and I also learn by association and comparison - anything new I learn, I try to find hooks in my existing knowledge that I can hang it on, by saying: "Oh, this is a lot like THAT". I may tie two diverse subjects together that way, but it helps!

[axordil]

There is a fundamental difference between a reference work and a tutorial work. Unfortunately, a lot of manuals try to be both.

[Primula Baggins]

A lot of manuals have to be both (I've written a couple). The best solution, I think, is to keep the explanatory section as simple as possible, with links or cross-references to more detailed information for those who need it. But what I found was that the writers of the software wanted every detail, special feature, and error message right there in each chapter. This clogged things up terribly and had the potential of confusing people. It was industrial software, and the manuals were intended to be used by the personnel running the processing machinery, who would need quick answers if anything went wrong, time being money, after all.

[axordil]

But what I found was that the writers of the software wanted every detail, special feature, and error message right there in each chapter.

That's why God invented the Salmon of Correction.

Where I work, reference documentation in the form of online help comes free with the product. Training costs extra. We get requests all the time for the documents that go with the training courses, and we tell clients they can have them...for the same price as the actual course, with the trainer and all. And we don't put training-type material in the doc.

Hey, our department has to make money somehow.

[Crucifer]

Mathematics is, I think, plural, being descriptive of all the various types of Math that there are: Algebra, Trigenometry, Differentiation etc.
Hence Maths.

[Primula Baggins]

But what's a "mathematic"?

[Crucifer]

The term isn't used. Algebra is a branch of mathematics.

[Primula Baggins]

That's my guess, too. However, in North America, anyway, "mathematics" is construed as singular—you never see "Mathematics are difficult subjects."

[Inanna]

A "mathematic" is a person deeply imbedded in the science of maths.



We always use "maths". Thats the way it should be.

[Primula Baggins]

Give me "math" or give me death!

[Griffon64]

*reaches for Prim's salmon*

Not that I think it would provide you what you request, Ms "I-say-math", but I could try

[Primula Baggins]

I bet you say to-MAH-to, too.

Ha, hee, ha, ho, if you had any idea how many hours of my life I have spent stripping every trace of British spelling, usage, and syntax out of defenseless manuscripts actually written by British-speaking people, some of them even British themselves, you would probably shake your head sadly at the vagaries of American publishing and go have a beer.

[Inanna]

Mahima shakes prim out of the evil laughter stupor she seems to have fallen into. Gives her salt and vinegar chips to make her come back to normality (i.e. with symmetric variance around the mean, and thin tails)

[Primula Baggins]

<eats chips>

<is puzzled>

<is also genuinely foggy-headed, you try writing a death scene four times because you can't figure out who should kill him>

[Crucifer]

Chips are deep fried bits of potato. What you mean is crisps...

Mathematics is a really hard subject, the subject of studying various branches of mathematics, hence maths...

[truehobbit]

Mathematics is indeed a singular word, but it still needs the 's' at the end, and because the 's' is there in the long form it should be there in the short form, too.
I think the reason is as Crucifer says, because it's the sum of all the mathematical stuff.
Just like politics is the sum of all the political stuff, or phonetics is the sum of all the phonetic stuff.
My theory is that it's for the same reason that you say "Three miles is long walk". English seems to see sums of all kinds as units, and hence singular.

Chips are deep fried bits of potato. What you mean is crisps...

Well, actually, crisps are deep fried bits of potato, too.

The difference just lies in how they are cut.

I like my crisps with vinegar, but I prefer my chips with ketchup and mayonnaise.

*gets out of thread before she gets too hungry*

[Inanna]

Ah, there see, Prim? MathS is how it is supposed to be. Our deat Hobby explained it very well.

[Crucifer]

My theory is that it's for the same reason that you say "Three miles is long walk". English seems to see sums of all kinds as units, and hence singular

Actually, the is there refers to the walk, not the three miles.

[Primula Baggins]

French fries (= chips) with mayonnaise?

How I love the opportunities this place gives me to confront the exotic, the alien, the inexplicable. . . .

A nice break from the contemplating dull everyday snacks such as buffalo wings with ranch dressing.

[Crucifer]

Crisps with vinegar...
Chips with mayonnaise...
Wierd.
Give me a chips n' peas any day.