Nameless Voice on 3/4/2009 at 16:18
I keep seeing a printer refill shop van with the slogan "Save Euro's and Make Cent's" - containing no less than four mistakes in five words (both the greengrocers' apostrophes and the fact that the plural of both Euro and Cent are also Euro and Cent.)
Fingernail on 3/4/2009 at 16:25
I think most people refer to them in plural as Euros and Cents though (Radiohead have a song called "Dollars & Cents", idiots!), at least Euro is definitely plural in Germany and probably most other countries. But in the UK, since we have Pounds, not Pound, it sort of follows in most peoples' minds.
nickie on 3/4/2009 at 16:52
Well I was hoping someone might enlighten me as to what the OP actually meant. But no, it's all about apostrophes - but don't you just love them?
I remember when I worked at Oxford University seeing a sign for professional typing services, advertising the typing of Dissertations and CV's.
Nameless Voice on 3/4/2009 at 17:02
Quote Posted by Fingernail
(Radiohead have a song called "Dollars & Cents", idiots!)
Oh no, the plural for US Cents is Cents; it's only Euro Cent that drop the S. The reason for that is because all the different Euro languages have different rules for pluralisation, so they decided to just keep them Euro and Cent so that the plurals would be the same in every language. It hasn't really caught on, since nearly everyone uses "Euros". Ireland is the only primarily English-speaking country that uses the Euro, and it is officially "Euro" here, but nearly everyone (Even TV presenters) call them "Euros". Any English-speaking country that doesn't actually use the Euro also tends to call them "Euros". It's a mess.
Fingernail on 3/4/2009 at 17:11
Not really, there is a very limited number of words in English that are the same as their plural, and currency has never been one of those, particularly since you'd want to emphasise how many of them you had!
Also, it ties in better with the physicality of the money. I have 50 Euro in the form of 50 Euro coins - but 50 Euro coins, whilst equalling the sum of 50 Euro, is 50 Euros nonetheless, surely??!?!?!
D'Juhn Keep on 3/4/2009 at 18:43
Quote Posted by Fingernail
(Radiohead have a song called "Dollars & Cents", idiots!)
"we are the dollar and cent" would also sound terrible
Enchantermon on 3/4/2009 at 19:46
Quote Posted by nickie
Well I was hoping someone might enlighten me as to what the OP actually meant.
It took a second for me to figure it out, too. Bikerdude was requesting a new prefix for the prefix list on the Advanced Search screen.
Fingernail on 3/4/2009 at 20:02
Quote Posted by D'Juhn Keep
"we are the dollar and cent" would also sound terrible
I was just casting round for an example and remembered it. Not a great song, really.
