Q. We are naming a maths series for classes 1 to 8 as ‘Revel in Maths’. The sales team is a little hesitant to accept this name as they find the word ‘revel’ associated with drinking and dancing. The general dictionary meaning of the phrasal verb ‘revel in something’ is ‘to take a great pleasure in something’. Kindly suggest an alternative.
A. As copyeditors accustomed to American English, we’re reveling in your “maths”—and in your single quotation marks (and the placement of periods relative to those marks). Seriously, though, a bit of revelry in the context of maths (or math) seems harmless to us, and unlikely to add up to anything resembling a bacchanal. If you must choose a different word, how about “Maths Is Fun”? To ensure everyone has an equally good time, including students with more of an aptitude for verbal than mathematical subjects, you could take an interdisciplinary detour into subject-verb agreement.