Re: CHAT: San Marino

From: "John Cowan"

> On Mon, 28 Aug 2000, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
> > When quoting a price, the unit of currency is not pluralized: (How much
is
> > this?)
>
> Or any measurement, I think.
Now, see, I'm not so sure about this. Since many of the metric units end in
"-er", that's not especially helpful. And the word "Mark" has the plural
"Mark". Non-native me just went trolling through the dictionary for other
units, trying "inch", which gave us "Zoll", and guess what, the plural is
"Zoll". Ah, but then came "mile", translated as "Meile" (quelle surprise).
There one finds the expression: "Das riecht man drei Meilen gegen den Wind"
(You can smell that one a mile off) with "Meile" in the plural. "Hektar" has
the plural "Hektare", so if one asks "How much land is there?", does one say
"drei Hektar" or "drei Hektare"? Same with "Gramm"; "drei Gramm" oder "drei
Gramme"? By analogy, if one can say, "Er ist drei Jahre alt.", why couldn't
one say, "Die Strasse ist drei Meilen lang." or "Er ist fünf Füsse hoch."?

> > Outside of price, I'm not sure whether one uses the plural or not:
> >
> > Es gibt zwei Pfunde auf dem Tisch. or Es gibt zwei Pfund auf dem Tisch.
>
> Then it's no longer a measurement, but a kind of metonymy: the unit
> for an object which measures the unit.
I agree with the logic here. The question is: Is this what the Germans do?

Kou