Re: OT: coins and currency

Quoting R A Brown <ray@...>:

> Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > Quoting R A Brown <ray@...>:
> [snip]
>
> > From some googling, _eurorna_ indeed appears to be the offical definite
> plural
> > form in Swedish, but common is also _eurona_, which is prefered by some
> > authorities (assuming writing a newspaper column on language use makes you
> an
> > authority).
> >
> > Personally, I find the form _eurorna_ cringe-inducing.
>
> Yep - and I cannot imagine the plural beings always 'euro' and 'cent' in
> practice in English.
[snip]
>
> Also, if the Greeks are allowed to call 100th of a euro one lepto, I do
> not see why more flexibility could not have been given to other nations.
> For example, if francophones prefer the term 'centime', why could they
> not use it?
I suppose the sensible thing in Swedish would have been to make it go _euro
euron euro euron_ by analogy with _mark marken mark marken_, or less happily
_euro euron euror eurorna_ by analogy with _krona kronan kronor kronorna_.
Instead, they went for the later with the complication you use _euro_ as indef
plural when talking about an amount of money (as opposed to individual coins).
This might be based on _öre öret öre/ören örena_, which shows the same
difference (it costs _2 öre_, but _2 ören_ lays on the table).

However, since _euror_ is the less common plural, and sits uneasy with Swedish
conjugations (it should be the pl of **_eura_, not _euro_!), _euro_ tends to
take over as *the* plural, and _eurorna_ is left stranded without a supporting
-r indef pl, and so feels weird. The form _eurona_ doesn't really make alot
sense either, but it fells better, since _-na_ is some sort of fall-back def pl
ending.

At the end of the day, _euro_ is just of atrocious from for a Swedish noun, and
outside measurements of the kind "30€", you're better off the deeper you bury
it in compounds like _euromynt_ "euro coin".

                                                 Andreas