Muke Tever wrote:
>>===== Original Message From tom@wolframite.net =====
>>>If I wanted to say the 'the' version without the definite article, I'd
use a
>>>pronoun: "the year minus its nineteen". I think that one isn't
ambiguous
>>>because 1977 as a value isn't likely to have that kind of possession
>ascribed
>>>to it.
>>
>> Indeed - but you haven't made "nineteen" indefinite by using "its". A
>>possessive makes a word definite just as the word "the" does. After all,
if
>>you say "her car" you are still implying that there is just one car to
which
>>you are referring.
>
>Now, I didn't say I wanted to make it _indefinite_, I said I wanted to say
it
>without the definite article. ;p What I had in mind (but apparently
decided
>not to put in the message) was how I might express that kind of
construction
>in a language without a definite article.
Just wondering-- is it a peculiarity of English (perhaps other Germanic?)
that we count thousands by hundreds? "nineteen hundred" "twenty-five
hundred"etc.??
To a Romance speaker, e.g. Spanish, "mil novecientos setenta y siete
menos/sin su diecinueve" would probably require some processing before they
figured it out....?