Well, neither of the words is technically correct than each other. The only difference is between the language and convention, whatsoever different groups of people want to use. Language is the only thing that is required to communicate effectively, and the rules related to it are meant to be served at the end.
As you all know that nobody would get confused if someone says math over maths or vice versa; both the words are accepted by everyone. But the idea of saying one of them is right and the other is a little wrong. The significant differences occur because of the two different groups of languages one is American, and the other one is British English.
So, let’s get into learning some interesting facts
Firstly, Math is an abbreviation that is used for the word mathematics from the early 1800s. It was stated in the diary of W.G. Hammond: “it rains outside so that we can learn some maths lessons inside.” However, it is also stated that Maths was invented a little later than Math. You can check the reference from the year 1911 when an English soldier and poet Wilfred Edward Salter Owen wrote a letter that stated: “The answers to maths question were provided to us this morning.
There is no doubt that these words are known for over a century and a half. But earlier, they were just used as an abbreviation and not as a proper word. All its variations, like math or maths,
were only used as a shorthand way to write the word mathematics. From the mid-20th century, it is seen that most of the people are using the word math or maths as a proper spoken word and just as a written abbreviation.
The word math became popular in the United States, and the maths version of the name became to be popularly known in the UK. But still, the primary argument remains that which of either word “math” or “maths” is correct.
The main thing is that mathematics is not a counting noun. While you can say Mathematics in situations like – “I have two mathematics lectures,” but you can never say that “I have two mathematics.” This example can also be understood by taking in words like physics or economics. Nobody would abbreviate the name economics as icons, and on the other hand, physics cannot be shortened verbally. Physics can be written as Phys but cannot be spoken like that.
Mathematics is a mass noun that has an ‘s’ in the end, just like physics or economics. It is considered as uncountable and is mostly treated as singular in the way it is used. Some of the crowd do study mathematics as plural, but unfortunately, the scenario is that mathematics is universally viewed as singular in common usage.
To conclude
Both math and maths are just abbreviations used for mathematics, which have now turned into properly spoken words. It is neither math nor maths that are correct in the real sense. However, if you are writing something for an audience that dominantly uses maths, then you must go for writing or speaking maths and vice versa. Otherwise, this quarrel would be never-ending.