Re: CHAT: San Marino
From: | John Cowan <cowan@...> |
Date: | Monday, August 28, 2000, 23:19 |
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