Euros and cents

Yoda

Dear colleagues,

I have written an open letter to the Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy, about the serious problem we have in Ireland, namely, that the false plural without -s is used with the words "euro" and "cent" in Ireland and that this bad grammar is given to us all hundreds of times of day on television every day.

If you have interest in sociolinguistic rights, see http://www.evertype.com/standards/euro/open-letter.pdf

Spread the word.

Meh

Dr. Loon

Yoda, there's no need to spam every fúckin board with this shíte. I really don't give a crap myself

Yoda

Dr Loon is entitled to his opinion, but I do not think I am "spamming". I have nothing to sell, but we have a problem in Ireland, and it needs to be solved.

I have sent this letter to about 150 people in Ireland, including the news and television media, various TDs and ministers, our European MEPs, and others; and I have sent it to about 50 people in Britain and Europe, including Tony Blair, Pat Cox, and Wim Duisenberg.

I am not a crank. I did my research and it is abundantly clear that (1) the European Council has no right to impose grammatical change on any language, (2) that the Irish government erred in accepting the s-less plural (while France, Portugal and Spain *do* use the -s!), and (3) that the Irish people have deceived themselves that they are "supposed" to use s-less plurals.

Read the letter if you like. I hope you will, and I hope you will be convinced, and I hope you will say "euros" and "cents" from this day forward.

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Meh & Dr. Loon
" Cool the Jets "

This is EURO board as well and Yoda is discussing a "EURO" issue-
If dont like what he has to say then dont reply.

Yoda,
Please dont post the exact same topic on various boards- Its just confusing and fragments the discussion

Because this is probably the best place for this thread, I'll leave it here and let other boards delete or move as they see necessary.

Dr. Loon

Originally posted by 80project

Yoda,
Please dont post the exact same topic on various boards- Its just confusing and fragments the discussion

Because this is probably the best place for this thread, I'll leave it here and let other boards delete or move as they see necessary.

Sorry, but that's what I'm saying. Fine, it's appropriate on this board, but there's no need to post it all over the shop.

irishguy

i allways corrected people that added the "S" [because i am a picky B*stard] but after reading your letter i will never do it again from now on its euros and cents p.s thats a very impresive letter and i think some 1 will take notice of it

Yoda

I posted this to the five "Society" boards (Business/Economy, Gaeilge, Green Issues, Humanities, and Politics) as it is a sociolinguistic issue with many ramifications. I am not sure how "green" the issue is, but it certainly is relevant to the other fora. I don't believe this issue can be confined to a single board, and surely most people don't read all the boards. I know I don't.

Bard shut it down on the Gaeilge forum but I have complained to him about that. The same "invariance" for grammar has been applied to Irish, where we should be able to write "7 n-eoró" and "4 cheint" but instead we are, for reasons arbitrary and wrong, told that the official forms must be "7 euro" and "4 cent".

I posted it as well to the IrelandOffline, where it is a bit off-topic, but because I've mentioned it there before and am fairly well-known there.

I posted it to the Irish television forum because it is there that the implementation of the "legislative plural" is most grossly offensive.

What happened to the Euro forum? I had intended to post it there.

Fragmenting the discussion? But it affects so many different aspects of life....

Bard

Originally posted by Yoda
What happened to the Euro forum? I had intended to post it there.

I believe it was merged into Business/Economy.

Mountjoy Mugger

Originally posted by Yoda
I posted it as well to the IrelandOffline, where it is a bit off-topic, but because I've mentioned it there before and am fairly well-known there.

You might be well less known there posting total OT cr*p. Get a life, you finnicky person you.....

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Yoda
this is the Euro forum- just a new name
- it still has all the original threads

as for multiple posting
Please refrain from doing this for the reasons I stated above-
Many issues have "cross-boards" appeal but ppl dont post something in every corner of the boards just so it can read- For people who read all or most of the forums its just annoying.

This is the appropriate place for it... Nuff said

Yoda

Irishguy said, warming Yoda's heart:
i allways corrected people that added the "S" [because i am a picky B*stard] but after reading your letter i will never do it again from now on its euros and cents p.s thats a very impresive letter and i think some 1 will take notice of it

A reformed hypercorrecter! One down, thousands more to go....

Thanks, Irishguy.

Meh

Originally posted by Yoda
I posted this to the five "Society" boards (Business/Economy, Gaeilge, Green Issues, Humanities, and Politics) as it is a sociolinguistic issue with many ramifications. I am not sure how "green" the issue is, but it certainly is relevant to the other fora. I don't believe this issue can be confined to a single board, and surely most people don't read all the boards.

The reason people don't read Business&Economy/Gaeilge/whatever forums is because they are not interested in these subjects. I fail to see what posting this across seven different forums achieves, apart from clogging up the boards...

spam To send (a message) indiscriminately to multiple mailing lists, individuals, or newsgroups.

This is clearly a case of spamming, commercial or not.

davros

Your letter is both reasoned and well-written, Yoda. I, for one, believe you are doing this country a valuable service. I am embarrassed by how easily Irish people acquiesced in a silly, needless distortion of their language.

If you get any feedback from your letter, please let us know.

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Michael,
may I suggest you send the letter to RTE- specifically...
[and It loathes me to say it] but it seems the likes of Marian Finnucane, PK or Joe Duffy discuss the "real issues" in our nation-state. A letter/phone call to these shows generally reaches a big audience.

Nár laga Dia do lámh;)

Biffa Bacon

Fair play to you Yoda. I always say euros and cents myself. Euro and cent sounds so stupid.

Yoda

Originally posted by Meh
This is clearly a case of spamming, commercial or not.

It was a press release sent to a large community of my fellow citizens about something I consider important. That it continues to be discussed on most of those fora I posted to indicates to me that I did not err.

Yoda

Originally posted by 80project
May I suggest you send the letter to RTE- specifically...
[and It loathes me to say it] but it seems the likes of Marian Finnucane, PK or Joe Duffy discuss the "real issues" in our nation-state. A letter/phone call to these shows generally reaches a big audience.

I have sent it to 200 people. I sent it to the general manager, some members of the board, and a number of programming directors in RTÉ, as well as to most of the most visible presenters. I did the same to TG4 and TV3. I sent it to the governors of the biggest banks, to An Post, to the Broacasting Complaints board, to the Ombudsman (as a linguistic rights issue). I sent it to a selection of TDs in government and opposition, to one senator who should take great pleasure in it. I sent it to a number of people in the Central Bank of Ireland. I sent it to all of the Irish MEPs, and to a number of people in the European Central Bank, including its president Wim Duisenberg, who was quoted on the matter specifically in the Financial Times of 8 March last (saying "Why ask a Dutchman? But I think '10 euro' is enough."). I sent it to Pat Cox, President of the European Parliament. I sent it to McCreevy's UK counterpart, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Browne, to a number of people in HM Treasury and in the Bank of England. And I sent it to Tony Blair. For if we do not correct this, thousands of British subjects who will object to this change to "the Queen's English" will certainly rally behind this issue as "yet another" reason to vote No in the eventual referendum on UK membership in the EMU. (I can see him reading the letter and reaching for the phone....)

It remains to be seen whether the letters will all reach their destinations (for the very powerful ones). I shall certainly keep you posted.

In the meantime, say "euros and cents" and tell everyone you know to do likewise! That at least we can do, even if RTÉ persists in its error.

b20uvkft6m5xwg

You cant be accused of not covering all the angles I must admit

Meh

Originally posted by Yoda
It was a press release sent to a large community of my fellow citizens about something I consider important. That it continues to be discussed on most of those fora I posted to indicates to me that I did not err.

The moderators don't seem to agree with you there. See dahamsta's post in IrelandOFFline. There are different forums for each topic for a reason.
You may have done a lot of research into English grammar, but you should have done some research into boards.ie etiquette as well.

Yoda

Originally posted by Meh
You may have done a lot of research into English grammar, but you should have done some research into boards.ie etiquette as well.

Grand so. I've made my peace with the moderators.

Now, Meh.... have you considered the arguments in the open letter and are you yourself saying "euros" and "cents"?

Yoda

The Private Secretary of one Government minister wrote to thank me for my letter, saying then that "As the issue concerned relates to the work of the Euro Changeover Board of Ireland, I have taken this opportunity to refer your correspondence to the Changeover Board to reply directly to you."

Of course, the ECBI doesn't set policy, so I can't imagine what they will say to me, as I am asking for policy change.

I suspect that I may be more successful getting Pat Cox, Wim Duisenberg, and Tony Blair interested in sorting this out than I may be getting the Irish authorities to do anything about it.

Terran

I have predicted that the Euro shall rise in value as the Sterling falls drastically, forcing the UK into massive Economic depression! (I don't know how this will happen, but it will, alright?)

Yoda

I received a call from Kevin Myers today in response to his receipt of a copy of the letter. Do look for an article from him in the Irish Times on this topic in the next week or so.

Yoda

In case this month's Magill's hasn't yet been pulled from the shelf, there's a brief editorial about my euro campaign in it on page 61.

In case it is no longer unavailable, you can read it at http://www.evertype.com/standards/euro/index.html

The_Conductor

Surely the whole idea of the Euro was to integrate all of us together as a single European economy, with a single currency. We already had a single economy, aka EFTA, and freedom of movement of goods and services (aka the Schengen and Maastricht treaties). The name of the currency was determined after much consultation among representatives from many countries (and indeed was not fully acceptable to all- Euro sounding exceptionally akin to the slang for urine in Greek), but in a common unity -was accepted by all. Your campaign sounds very alike a brazen attempt to impose English as a standard "common" language on our continental friends. As for "cent" being plural, cent always was plural, most Americans do not bother adding an "s". It is derived, as you are no doubt aware, from Latin, and migrated via French into the English language many hundred years ago. I for one will not be supporting this tirade against our fledgling currency.

Yoda

Originally posted by smccarrick
Surely the whole idea of the Euro was to integrate all of us together as a single European economy, with a single currency. We already had a single economy, aka EFTA, and freedom of movement of goods and services (aka the Schengen and Maastricht treaties).

Yes, of course. Your point? I have never criticized the introduction of this currency. I have only criticized the idiotic way a fake plural was invented for it for the English language, and I have criticized the rather embarrassing way this bad grammar has been taken on board, uncritically, by the Irish media and a great many Irish people.

The name of the currency was determined after much consultation among representatives from many countries

That's not true. The name was invented by the Council of Ministers without much thought to the linguistic implications of inventing a new morpheme and without consultation or consideration of the ramifications of the grammar and pronunciation of the word they invented. Make no mistake: the name of our currency was made up by politicians, not by informed linguists or language-planners.


Note, however, that my campaign is not based on an objection to the name "euro". It is an objection to the indefensible s-less plural foisted upon us for both the word "euro" and "cent".

... (and indeed was not fully acceptable to all- Euro sounding exceptionally akin to the slang for urine in Greek), but in a common unity -was accepted by all.

The "urine" story is an untrue and unsubstantiated urban myth. There are a number of such myths about the name of the currency, and lots of people, like you, promulgate them without doing any research or providing actual proof of their claims. (What is the slang for "urine" in Greek, and how is it spelt in the Greek alphabet? If you don't know, don't repeat the rumour.)

Your campaign sounds very alike a brazen attempt to impose English as a standard "common" language on our continental friends.

I don't think you've read the documents if you think that that summarizes my effort. In fact it is an effort to preserve decent English grammar from a bogus invention by the council of ministers that the Irish government should have refused. I shall summarize:

1. There's a rule that on the paper money and the coins the words "euro" and "cent" shall be used without any change for plural for any language, so that the bills and coins would look nice typographically. (This rule is not followed in Greece, where the singular "lepto" is used on the 1¢ coin and the plural "lepta" is used on the 2¢, 5¢, 10¢, 20¢, and 50¢ coins.)

2. Some people thought that this meant that the words were supposed to have invariant plurals in European languages. There are a few languages, like German, where words often have a zero-plural, but other languages, like Finnish, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, have explicit grammatical forms which have been defended by their governments and which are used by their print and broadcast media.



3. The Irish government failed to protest at the application of the s-less plural to the currency name in the English language. Therefore, many people believe that the official plural should be "euro" and "cent" in English, even though the official plural is "euros" and "cents" (or "centimes"/"centimos"/"cêntimos") in French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

4. The European Commission recommends the use of the stupid s-less plural in legislation in English, but also recommends the natural plural with -s for documents aimed at the general public. Therefore it seems clear that the media, banks, and indeed the general public, ought to be using the natural plurals "euros" and "cents".

As for "cent" being plural, cent always was plural, most Americans do not bother adding an "s".

Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about. ALL Americans use the plural "cents". Adjectivally, the plural is (quite correctly) not used (a five-dollar lunch, a two-cent cigar) but in amounts the plural is always used (the lunch cost me five dollars and the cigar cost me two cents).

It is derived, as you are no doubt aware, from Latin, and migrated via French into the English language many hundred years ago.

The Oxford English dictionary indicates that in "per cent", the term appears to have entered the language via either Italian "per cento" or pseudo-Latin "per centum" by 1568. Its use as a currency term may result from its being truncated from "centime", "centesimum", or other equivalent of "hundredth". Nevertheless, as a currency term it is attested with a plural "cents" from at least 1786. Given 216 years of the use of this word as a currency term with the plural in -s, could you please tell me what possible benefit it can be to Ireland or to Europe for us [not] to use the same plurals for these terms as will certainly be used by the rest of the English-speaking world?

Hm?

I for one will not be supporting this tirade against our fledgling currency.

What tirade against our fledgling currency? You ought to read the relevant documents on my website. It isn't a tirade against our currency. I like the currency quite well.

But you may wish to take a moment and reflect upon how truly stupid it is that €2.20 is "dos euros y veinte céntimos" in Spanish, "deux euros et vignt centimes" in French, "two euros and twenty cents" in Canada, the US, Australia, and South Africa (and probably will be in the UK), but "two euro and twenty cent" on RTÉ.

mm.ie

Why not write to them again and give out about the life span of the notes....have you seen what the average farmers arse pocket has done to the €5 note?

The_Conductor

My point, which you seem to have ignored-
Euro and cent, are not by any means alone in usage by denoted similiarly for both a singular and plural in the English language.
This is not "the creation of a fake plural for the English language", indeed, given that English is concoction of several different languages, common words today owing as much to Norse as to Latin, the suggestion does not bear even spending time on.

English, the language, which you seem to so dearly cherish, only really assumed any defining form that would enshrine it as a language in its own right, and not a mere dialect, around the year 1131 AD (yes I can do a little research too, if I so choose), when the Peterborough Chronicles had to be abondoned, and was only recognised as an official language of Parliament in 1362 (French was still the preferred language, along with being that most spoken by the mercantile classes).

Plurals have in English, over the years, been denoted with up to 6 different endings, three of which are still in common use- the use of "s" (or -es after an -sh spelling), the weak plurals which associate with germanic pluralism "en" (examples of which include children, brethren, oxen) and of course remnants of old English which still lurk in plurals such as men, women, feet, geese, teeth.

Obvious anomalies have lapsed- e.g. if you read Chaucers tales you will see mention of "daughters", "doughtres" and "doughtren". It has been argued that the methodology for deciding the use of pluralism was in fact more a geographical anamoly than anything else, "s" being common in the greater London area, but words may have been left without alteration to denote a plural a mere 20 miles north of London (as in sheep).
Similiarly hi, hem, and her- still common in some areas (Lake district) denote they, them and their to the rest of us.

There is no such thing as a defiinitive rule in terms of language that works 100% of the time, if one manages to break a language down to this level it effectively dies (look at latin). English most certainly, given its recent vintage and the fact that it is in fact a collection of unrelated languages, dialects and suppositions cloven together for simplicities sake, does not meet this description.

What does it matter it I spend 200 Euro in the mart to buy 3 sheep, who as sheep have cloven feet, or hooves if you prefer.

No one had any difficulties for the 25 odd years of the existance of the Irish Punt, which was also most assuredly plural. Fiche punt, triocha punt, 100 punt.

bobsmith833

Has this campaign met with any success yet?

Even if it hasn't, the Irish will be forced into line whenever the English-speaking UK comes into the eurozone, because everyone there says "euros" already and whatever misguided force it was that first got the population of Erin's Green Valleys saying "euro", will probably not be able to get its claws into the insular British populace...

Yours sincerely,
Bob.

The_Conductor

You're quite correct.
However, given their abhorance of the Euro, and the defacto sidelining of the British in Europe, in favour of the French and Germans, looks like it'll be a while before we are joined with them.

SMcCarrick