Re: CHAT: San Marino

On Mon, 28 Aug 2000, SMITH,MARCUS ANTHONY wrote:

> I use the first option for all foreign currancies.  I'm a bit surprised by
> this, to be honest.  I spent years in Spain, and when speaking Spanish is
> do say "dos pasetas", but when speaking English, I find "two pasetas" to
> be very akward.  For me it should be "two paseta".
My father was once asked by telephone to come and give a lecture in
Spain, which he did not want to do (he hated traveling).  The person
on the other end offered him a fat honorarium of so-and-so-many pesetas.
He roared "I wouldn't come even if you offered me [that many] POTATOES."
So obviously the hispanophone would-be persuader was using "pesetas"
in English as the plural.

As for "yen", "baht", and "yuan", I grant that these aren't pluralized
in English either.  An interesting case would be the markka (while
it still exists).  I suspect that the normal E. form is "mark" pl "marks".

--
John Cowan                                   cowan@ccil.org
"[O]n the whole I'd rather make love than shoot guns [...]"
        --Eric Raymond