Math and Meth

It's a well know fact that Americans pervert the perfectly useful plural word 'maths' into the useless singular 'math', as if it was all one thing. "Do you know new math?", they ask. "No'', I want to explain, in the instant before my hand slaps their face, "but I know maths, like geometry, algebra, topography, probability, Euclid, Pythagoras, Fermat, Newton, Leibnitz, Schroedinger- which did you have in mind?"

Meth is probably another piece of American guile. A new generation have discovered a latterday drug scourge- a cheap home-brewed pharaceutical in the amphetamine family. Bless my cotton socks, I may not have had crack, but I certainly remember a good deal of kitchen-sink speed, and wetly flocculent pink snow known as 'base'. As this crone remembers it, 'meth' in a previous time was pharmaceutical speed in vials- top stuff. 'Meths' on the other hand is methanol, i.e. wood alcohol, which is a potent toxin to human neurones, especially the optic nerve. Know your terms!