Seeking Grammar Police Ruling - Math's

[Carol]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "P. Alexis Nguyen"
<alexisnguyen at ...> wrote:
>
> bboyminn:
> > Oddly, once again, my American Heritage dictionary shows >SNIP<
> > but no 'maths'. Though I suspect if I had an Oxford Dictionary
> > things would be different.

Ali: 
> Merriam-Webster (online because I don't own English-English
dictionaries) shows maths, saying that it's (1) chiefly British and
(2) function is "noun plural," which is in keeping with standard [US]
English conventions.
> 
Carol responds:
I just checked and you're correct (except for the part about "in
keeping with standard U.S. conventions," which I don't understand and
don't see in the description. U.S. English does not treat
"mathematics" as plural, so why would it treat "maths" that way if it
were used by an American?). I thought M-W Online would say that
"maths" is "plural but usually singular in construction," which is how
it describes "mathematics." Americans would say "mathematics is [a
difficult subject]" and (naturally) "math is [a difficult subject]."
Would the British say "mathematics are" and "maths are," treating both
as plural just because they end in "s"?

Carol, whose ears are still ringing from "government are" in Jayne's
Noah's ark joke even though I'm already familiar with that aspect of
British usage