Hi, Wednesday, October 29, 2003, 1:32:29 PM, you wrote:
> Roman numerals are not abbreviations. V is not "short" for anything in > Latin. You must have missed the following sentence from my post: "I think of LX as an abbreviation, not as a word, even though it is really the Latin numeral for 60." Bob >> Hi, >> >> Wednesday, October 29, 2003, 4:40:11 AM, you wrote: >> >> > Ok I finally have to ask why everyone here uses the term LXen when > referring >> > to their LX in plural. I must be slow but I can't for the life of me > figure it >> > out. LXes yes, it sounds right but LXen throws me every time. >> > vic >> >> I've always assumed it's from a German way of forming plurals. How it >> became established I don't know. Perhaps it's because some English >> words ending in -x still form the plural that way. This is because Old >> English, like German, had several different ways of forming plurals, >> on of which is to add '-en' - child/children, tunge/tungan >> (tongue/tongues). The language has become simplified over the years. One >> way in which people learn to use an unfamiliar term is by analogy, >> for example children learn dog/dogs etc. and by analogy say man/mans, >> mouse/mouses etc. until they learn the correct forms. I think 'LXen' >> is an analogy with words ending in -x, like ox/oxen. However, I can't >> think of any more examples, so perhaps it's more of an analogy with >> German, where affing -n or -en is still common. >> >> Personally I think the plural should be LXs - not LXes or LX's >> (especially not LX's!) - because that is the normal way of doing it >> for abbreviations. I think of LX as an abbreviation, not as a word, >> even though it is really the Latin numeral for 60. If it was a word >> then LXes might be ok, as it is for 'foxes' and 'indexes'. Misguided >> people who think the plural of 'index' is 'indices' might prefer to call >> their LXs 'Lices'.
