etymology - "Maths" for "Mathematics"; where does the S come from?


So in US English we shorten mathematics to math, and in the UK they say maths. Where does the 'S' come from in the UK version? For some reason I had it in my head that this was just because it's plural so you add the 's'; referring to multiple types of mathematics. But a question on another SE site just made me think about it, and it's actually not. "Mathematics" is both plural and singular:



I am studying mathematics in school.


There are many different types of mathematics.



So the 's' isn't a marker of a plural, so my mental-reasoning for why Brits use the 's' in maths is wrong.


The question becomes then, why is it there? I can't think of another abbreviation that pulls a letter from the end of the word like that ("math*******" vs "math*******s"). And this isn't just an extension of something used for similar words, because I don't think other subjects are abbreviated this way. So what is the reasoning behind it/where did it come from? Is it just what people started saying? Did a prominent person start using it? Did other people think (not very hard about it!) like I used to and jump to the plural conclusion? Or does it stand for something else?


To elaborate on my point about "not just adding the S for similar words", I'll take an example from a comment: "economics". In the US we shorten this to "econ". But I don't think they say "econs" in the UK, do they? So why just "maths"?




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