Re: CHAT: San Marino

On Mon, 28 Aug 2000, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:

>Actually, I was thinking after I sent my last post, English does this too
>with reasonably unfamiliar monetary units, particularly the "exotic East"
>currencies:
>
>eight renminbi
>eight yuan
>eight yen
>eight won
>eight baht
>
>Perhaps that's because the languages which are spoken where these currencies
>are used don't have grammatical plural, but I'm not sure.
Could be due to too little time as an English word? Less exotic
(due to longer contact) are rials, dinars, roubles, etc. Perhaps
in a few centuries more, we'll have yuans and yens.

>Still, what would I do with a krona if I were speaking in English?
I'd say "one kroner, two kroners".

>
>seven krona?
>seven kronas?
>seven kronor?
>
>or a lira?
One lira, two liras.

>
>nine lira (yeah, right, what would that buy me? let's amend that to)
>nine million lira (so, perhaps, we could buy an orange)
>nine million liras
>nine million lire
Allright. Two million liras. :)

>
>In both cases, the third option seems a little forced unless you were among
>a group of English-speaking expats in Sweden or Italy. But I'm waffling as
>to the first and second choices. I would definitely have to defer to what
>other people were using.
Indeed; the for'n plural sounds a bit odd. :)

Padraic.

>Kou