24 Dec
2021
24 Dec
'21
9:57 p.m.
On Thu, Dec 23, 2021 at 04:28:26PM +0000, Dr Iain Maoileoin wrote:
50 years ago our (Scottish) schooling used only Arithmetic for the basic
number manipulation. About 10-15 years ago maffs became the name. I
dont know how the transition occured with us. Schools? or Media??
Perhaps we have just imported the name from the good old US of A ;-)
Or more likely from England?
I can recall my parents and grandparents referring to the "Three R's",
so at some point we would have called it Arithmetic.
I don't recall what we called it in Primary School, when simply doing
addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and handing of fractions
(i.e. rationals) including 'vulgar fractions'. However once at Middle
School, the lessons were definitly called maths, and covered other fields
(e.g. logariths).
The O-level and A-level papers in High School were all in maths. At
O-level Mathematics, at A-level Pure Mathematics & Applied Mathematics
(the latter at the time with distinct Statistics and/or Mechanics
lessons / papers). So that is at least the mid 70s.
(For folks outwith the UK, the Scottish and English school systems
are distict, and always have been)
DF