Word usage comes in 14 year cycles!

http://www.sciencealert.com/the-words-we-use-change-in-mysterious-14-year-cycles

This is weird.

Originally posted by sonhouse
http://www.sciencealert.com/the-words-we-use-change-in-mysterious-14-year-cycles

This is weird.

Zipf's Law is pretty weird too!

It's strange how language can be governed by Maths.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
...
It's strange how language can be governed by Maths.

Not governed. Described. Why'd you capitalize 'maths'? Mathism, 🙂

Originally posted by apathist
Not governed. Described. Why'd you capitalize 'maths'? Mathism, 🙂

My bad. Comes of being a teacher when the subject Mathematics is capitalised
although I appreciate that the discipline of mathematics is not.

Ever taken an English Literature class?
It's about English literature! 😀

Originally posted by apathist
Not governed. Described. Why'd you capitalize 'maths'? Mathism, 🙂

Since Mathematics is capital? 😉

Originally posted by apathist
Not governed. Described. Why'd you capitalize 'maths'? Mathism, 🙂

I think a better question is why cram an "s" on the end.

Mathematics is NOT plural just because it has an "s" on the end.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I think a better question is why cram an "s" on the end.

Mathematics is NOT plural just because it has an "s" on the end.

3 Mathematicians enter a bar.......

Originally posted by Suzianne
I think a better question is why cram an "s" on the end.

Mathematics is NOT plural just because it has an "s" on the end.

Mathematics
Civics
Robotics

The S isn't a plural, it's an indication of a mass / collective noun. Without the S it becomes an adjective.
Nothing to do with the math and maths abbreviations, they're just local usage.

Originally posted by sonhouse
3 Mathematicians enter a bar.......

I think pluralizing it just means there are many forms of math, topological, calculus, algebra, trig and so forth. So you would say 'the study of mathematics covers such subjects as calculus, algebra, triginometry, topology, etc.

Originally posted by Suzianne
I think a better question is why cram an "s" on the end.

Mathematics is NOT plural just because it has an "s" on the end.

"Math" is American usage, "maths" is British.

Originally posted by moonbus
"Math" is American usage, "maths" is British.

That is my point.

"Math" seems an appropriate abbreviation of "mathematics".

"Maths" just makes no sense. It's not plural. No reason to cram that "s" on the end.

If you're going to make it "maths", then "math's" (the apostrophe is for the missing letters) makes way more sense than "maths". "Maths" just means nothing.

Like "aluminium". I just do not understand the Brit penchant to add in letters for nothing.

Like "honour" or "colour".

Maybe "special snowflakes" need their own words. Perhaps they feel "American usage" makes the words unusable, I don't know.

Like "zed". What the hell is wrong with "zero"? Even Spanish uses "cero", not "ced".

"Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform

Why does it seem so odd to Americans that the rest of the English-speaking world hasn't allowed Noah Webster's preferred spellings to "reform" their own? From this side of the fence, we feel capable of managing our own language without having some outsider saying that we should change it. We don't criticise American spelling or antiquated American units of measurement, so what right to Americans have to criticise ours?

Originally posted by Kewpie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-language_spelling_reform

Why does it seem so odd to Americans that the rest of the English-speaking world hasn't allowed Noah Webster's preferred spellings to "reform" their own? From this side of the fence, we feel capable of managing our own language without having some outsider saying that we should change it. We ...[text shortened]... or antiquated American units of measurement, so what right to Americans have to criticise ours?

And that's another thing. Why do Australians have to go around crushing everyone's groove? It's called a "rant" for a reason.

I'm with you on the antiquated units of measurement though, even though I still prefer "miles" to "kilometers".

But you guys did finally come around to agree with us about the decimalized dollar versus the antiquated "pound", so maybe there's hope yet. 🙂

Originally posted by Suzianne

I'm with you on the antiquated units of measurement though, even though I still prefer "miles" to "kilometers".

But you guys did finally come around to agree with us about the decimalized dollar versus the antiquated "pound", so maybe there's hope yet. 🙂

I agree with you about decimal currency - although I was very much agin it when it actually arrived in 1966, since I had to perform about 35,000 mental conversion calculations at my place of work. But it was definitely worth it. The switch to metric for everything else was mostly beneficial too - just so many things got easier. Back in my motorcycling days, we had to buy 3 sets of spanners for an English-made bike, but all the other available ones (Japanese, Italian, German) came in 1 metric set. About the only everyday one we have left is the acre, the hectare arrived but somehow the acre didn't go away.

Originally posted by Kewpie
I agree with you about decimal currency - although I was very much agin it when it actually arrived in 1966, since I had to perform about 35,000 mental conversion calculations at my place of work. But it was definitely worth it. The switch to metric for everything else was mostly beneficial too - just so many things got easier. Back in my motorcycling day ...[text shortened]... everyday one we have left is the acre, the hectare arrived but somehow the acre didn't go away.

Oh don't get me started on British bikes! Whitworth threads--aaarrrggggghhhh!