Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 June 16

= June 16 =

Aftermaths
Given that UK/Australian speakers abbreviate "mathematics" to "maths", and may be mentally primed to regard any instance of "math" as an Americanism, do they ever hypercorrect the etymologically unrelated "aftermath" to "aftermaths"? This is a hard thing to google. L ANTZY T ALK 01:02, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * No. I've never heard of such a thing ever.  -- Jayron 32 01:08, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I've never heard of any other British/Commonwealth nations say "aftermaths", but it is apparently a valid plural form of "aftermath". — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  01:25, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's hard to google. So don't use Google, use iWeb. This has over 400 hits for "aftermaths". A very quick glance suggests that most, perhaps all, are plurals of "aftermath". As for looking for examples with singular reference, I'll leave this for you. -- Hoary (talk) 02:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * Unlike "maths", "aftermath" is not an abbreviation. No real comparison. HiLo48 (talk) 02:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * "Maths" is a clipping, "aftermath" is not; the question is about hypercorrection. -- Hoary (talk) 06:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * "Mathematics" is not really a plural. It's derived from the Greeks suffix "-ikos" which means "pertaining to". Interestingly, the abbreviation "math" appears to predate the abbreviation "maths". It would be interesting to see if other "-ics" words are abbreviated that way: acoustics, aerobics, economics, physics... In particular, we shorten economics to "econ". Do Brits say "econs"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:51, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * What does iWeb indicate about "econs"? -- Hoary (talk) 06:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * I have never heard anyone shorten "economics" in speech, but only in the context of writing BSc (Econ) after someone's name. So no is the answer. Alansplodge (talk) 14:39, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * And in case you're wondering, nobody ever hypercorrects "bath" to "baths" or "path" to "paths" unless a plural is intended. Alansplodge (talk) 17:02, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm getting a bit of a bookshop sketch vibe from that response. --Khajidha (talk) 18:48, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Correct (courtesy link) :-) Alansplodge (talk) 19:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)


 * "I have never heard XYZ; therefore XYZ is not said" isn't very satisfactory; and it amazes me in 2020, when we have data from corpora (or the verifiable lack of data from corpora) at our fingertips. One Judycheng writes: Yes, there are typos, but her repeated tokens of "econs" are hardly typos for "econ". Is she British; is English even a first language for her? I don't know. Anyone seriously interested is free to investigate further. (Oh, let's quote "Sophie": ) -- Hoary (talk) 02:08, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
 * My apologies Hoary, but I can at least vouch that that it is not commonly used here, at least not in the preceding 60 years that I have been present in the United Kingdom. I suppose it may be jargon amongst students of economics, a somewhat obscure science, art or whatever you will that I have only studied at a cursory level. Alansplodge (talk) 15:43, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Following the principle that we have an article on everything, I went to Comparison of American and British English. This difference is mentioned twice, but not with any historical explanation. Readers will see that there are a large number of these differences. Many are not logical. But that statement is true for much of the English language. HiLo48 (talk) 23:04, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
 * It should also be noted that in Received Pronunciation and Southern English dialects, the vowel in "maths" does not rhyme with "aftermath" - I believe as opposed to, which would reduce the probability of the confusion that the OP suggests might occur.  Alansplodge (talk) 15:55, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Ahh. I just assumed they were also homophones in BrE. L ANTZY T ALK 19:00, 18 June 2020 (UTC)