The British and others pronounce “z”, “zed”, owing to the origin of the letter “z”, the Greek letter “Zeta”. This gave rise to the Old French “zede”, which resulted in the English “zed” around the 15th century.

The UK version is more logical. Math is an abbreviation of mathematics, which is a count noun in British English because there are different types of maths (geometry, algebra, calculus, etc.) and a mass noun that happens to end in an ‘s’ in American English (like gymnastics in both dialects).

The phenomenon you describe is just the mutual assimilation of a vowel and a consonant into each other, leaving behind a syllabic consonant (In this case, a syllablic L) in the middle of the word. In other words, “nuclear” /ˈnjuːklɪ. ɝ/ turns into “nucl’ar” [ˈnjuːkɫ̩.

To North American speakers of English, the word to use is “math”, as in “I majored in math”, and “maths” would sound wrong. Speakers of British English, however, would always say “maths”, as in “I took a degree in maths”. They would never say “math”. There are logical arguments for both spellings.

English chemist Sir Humphry Davy named the element alumium in 1808 and then changed it to aluminum in 1812. British editors changed it to aluminium to be more in keeping with other elements such as potassium and sodium, while the Americans retained the spelling as aluminum.

How to use math and maths. The only difference between math and maths is where they’re used. Math is the preferred term in the United States and Canada. Maths is the preferred term in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and other English-speaking places.

Some students dislike math because they think it’s dull. They don’t get excited about numbers and formulas the way they get excited about history, science, languages, or other subjects that are easier to personally connect to. They see math as abstract and irrelevant figures that are difficult to understand.