Re: OT: coins and currency

Mark J. Reed wrote:
> On 1/7/06, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>
>>Yep - and I cannot imagine the plural beings always 'euro' and 'cent' in
>>practice in English. I would expect _both_ euro _and_ euros, just we use
>>both pound and pounds now. For example, we say 'a five pound note', 'a
>>ten pound note', and a price like £5.50 is more likely to be said as
>>'five pound fifty' than 'five pounds fifty' tho £5.00 is more likely to
>>be 'five pounds' than 'five pound'.
>
>
> Over here, $5.50 would never be read "five dollar fity"; it would be
> either "five fifty"
'five fifty' sounds like a time reference  ;)

But, yes, one does hear sometimes hear 'five fifty' as well as 'five
pound fifty' - but IME the latter is more common.

[snip]
>..... or "five dollars and fifty
> cents"  (or "five and a half dollars").  The plural of "dollar" is
> always "dollars"
We would similarly use 'pounds' in similar contexts: 'five pound and
fifty pence" or "five and a half pounds".

(and adjective formations in English tend to eschew
> plurals, hence the "twenty-dollar bill" rather than the
> *"twenty-dollars bill"), so using "euro" in English sans -s sounds
> very strange.  By which I mean, it sounds French. :)
To us Brits 'twould sound OK in some contexts, but not in all. IMO while
it is desirable to have an officially established form for the singular,
I think it would have been better to allow national languages to decide
their own plurals by usage.

>
>>Also I notice that no Irish forms were included.
>
>
> And no Esperanto!  For shame, EU! :)
Um - not an official language of the EU. But all officially recognized
national languages are given official recognition by the EU. If it is
seen fit to include Irish on my EU pass-port surely Irish should have
been included among the official list of names of the currency?

But if there has to be an IAL included, surely Europanto has a greater
claim?  ;-)
==============================

Tim May wrote:
 > R A Brown wrote at 2006-01-07 20:15:39 (+0000)
[snip]
 >  >
 >  > While 'five euro fifty' will come quite naturally to us
 >  > anglophones, I find it difficult to imagine many people saying 'How
 >  > many euro have you got?'
 >  >
 >
 > Michael Everson, perhaps best known for his work on Unicode, has been
 > vocal on this issue.  See
 >
 > http://www.evertype.com/standards/euro/
 >
 > particularly
 > http://www.evertype.com/standards/euro/todayfm.html and
 > http://www.evertype.com/standards/euro/open-letter.pdf

Good for him. I also agree with what he wrote about the unsuitability of
the word 'euro' in 1997:
http://www.evertype.com/standards/euro/euroname.html

I too was disappointed at the time. 'ecu' was IMO better, tho I can see
the pesky "c" causing problems as over in central Europe it is likely to
be pronounce [etsu] and if one Turkey became a member of the EU and
adopted the common currency, I suppose it would get pronounced [edZu] :)

But I feel Michael was right in saying: "I would wager real money (yes,
an ecu would be fine) that the schoolchildren and artists of Europe
could do a better job than did 14 ministers sitting round a table."
Amen!

But now I fear it's too late to change the name - the
"culturally-ignorant bankers and politicians" have, methinks, won the
day on that. But let them not win on making the 'euro' and 'cent'
invariable in English! Heck - if the French, Spanish & Portuguese are
allowed to tack -s onto the plural, why can't anglophones? And the
French don't even bother to pronounce the -s they are permitted to keep   ;)

This is just regulation gone barmy and one more example of the nonsense
that puts so many of my fellow countrymen off getting any more involved
with the EU (and I speak as a pro-European).

 >  >
 >  > The official directive seemed a tad over-prescriptive to me. Also I
 >  > notice that no Irish forms were included. Yet Ireland has adopted
 >  > the euro as it currency and AFAIU the Irish has the same official
 >  > standing as the other languages given.
 >
 > Only since June of last year.

Is that so? Wonder why it got onto my passport several years ago.

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY

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