tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post115809637736977495..comments2024-03-16T00:21:43.240+00:00Comments on Separated by a Common Language: die and dicelynneguisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10171345732985610861noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-49727471606594858202023-07-09T22:06:52.201+01:002023-07-09T22:06:52.201+01:00"Die" as singular is used a lot among ta..."Die" as singular is used a lot among tabletop roleplayers. E.g. "Roll a six-sided die." (Or in tabletop slang, a d6.) We seem to be about the only people who still use it that way. ='DAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-18435106720823502462023-05-27T04:44:56.064+01:002023-05-27T04:44:56.064+01:00One pee is what one does in the loo.One pee is what one does in the loo.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-60582462729148015932022-08-07T18:07:43.319+01:002022-08-07T18:07:43.319+01:00'Dice' has been used as a singular for so ...'Dice' has been used as a singular for so long that when it was first used that way the plural -s was pronounced /s/, not /z/. 'Bodice' is another example, originally being the plural of 'body'. The pronunciation then influenced the spelling.<br />I discovered sometime during childhood that the 'correct' singular of 'dice' was 'die'. (My education at that stage inclined towards the prescriptive.) My big sister didn't half mock me when I used it during a board game.bootgumshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05253676099052552584noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-62576502622273663802021-01-06T18:48:07.007+00:002021-01-06T18:48:07.007+00:00never heard anyone say one pence - one pee or a pe...never heard anyone say one pence - one pee or a penny, but then tuppence ;) Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-16748880825939779042020-02-20T08:50:03.534+00:002020-02-20T08:50:03.534+00:00Coming to this in February 2020 from the thread on...Coming to this in February 2020 from the thread on Dicing with Death, I wonder if the problem might be with the sound of the 's'. If the singular is 'die', the regular plural would be 'dies' with a 'z' sound, as it is in the Anonymous post of the former die-sinker on 27th July 2013. That is the same as the plural of 'lie' and 'tie'. It is the normal usage when 'die' has its metal-working meaning.<br /><br />'Dice' though, has an 's' sound - or at least, it does in Br-English. So that conveys the impression to the casual speaker who learns by listening and speaking and hears 'dice' first, as they will have done, that it is not a plural of a singular word 'die'. <br /><br />So in Br-English usage, it would either be an irregular plural, or one of those irregular words like 'sheep' where the plural is the same as the singular. Br-English has more or less unanimously now gone for the latter.<br /><br />There's another question though. In Am-English is the 's' in 'dice' a 'z', the regular form, or 's', the irregular one?Drunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-58338238157563715202020-02-19T17:33:36.802+00:002020-02-19T17:33:36.802+00:00I wonder if "die" is avoided due to its ...I wonder if "die" is avoided due to its association with deathBoris Zakharinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16560756640621720539noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-44862355906960489632020-02-16T23:27:55.507+00:002020-02-16T23:27:55.507+00:00Grew up in Australia, and always used 'dice...Grew up in Australia, and always used 'dice' for singular or plural for games with family members or friends. My mother, who was fairly careful (traditional? conservative?) with her language, never corrected us. As far as I recall, I first encountered the singular form 'die' when I was doing maths in secondary school in the 1970s.Michael Vnuknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-33030689676301105512020-02-15T15:49:37.210+00:002020-02-15T15:49:37.210+00:00Fascinating conversation! Thank you for that.
So, ...Fascinating conversation! Thank you for that.<br />So, regarding "we don't think of a throw as irreversible", I think this comes from how dice were used in ancient times (e.g., Caesar, Story of Esther) where dice (or "lots) where "thrown" in order to divine what supernatural forces would want. Thus the throw/cast would be irreversible in that the outcome of the cast is "irreversible" just as the the coin toss in the Super Bowl is irreversible. <br /><br />My two pence,<br />DavidDavid Bermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09130843216395791229noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-51425031069430838282015-12-07T17:12:07.354+00:002015-12-07T17:12:07.354+00:00Nobody does look at it. It's one pee or one pe...Nobody does look at it. It's one pee or one pence. A penny is something that was abolished back in the 1970's.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-83178076721015866982015-12-07T16:19:55.184+00:002015-12-07T16:19:55.184+00:00One pence is obviously wrong. Just look st the co...One pence is obviously wrong. Just look st the coin, it states on it 'one penny'.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-54440099497609073972015-07-27T16:36:03.045+01:002015-07-27T16:36:03.045+01:00Is there any evidence that "die" is a mi...Is there any evidence that "die" is a middle-class signifier? Growing up in the northeastern U.S., I was taught the singular "die," but noticed my slightly-better-heeled step-siblings said "dice."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-30424022267730156202014-12-21T13:31:35.639+00:002014-12-21T13:31:35.639+00:00I hadn't made the connection with pence before...I hadn't made the connection with <i>pence</i> before, but it does make a lot of sense.<br /><br />I believe you can call a coin a <i>penny</i> even though the name belongs to a foreign currency. Before 1971 we had just the one coin called a penny, and the plural was <b><i>pennies</i></b>. That coined was abolished and replaced by something that was round and brown but otherwise bore no resemblance to an old penny. The old 1d was worth a 240th of a pound, the new 1p is a <i>cent</i> by another name. <br /><br />But <i>a penny</i> was also the <b>value</b> of a penny coin. If that value was more then 1, we use not the plural <i>pennies</i> but the collective <i><b>pence</b></i>.<br /><br />For many in my generation, and for others influence by the way we speak, the word <i>penny</i> has disappeared (except for old coins) in exactly the same way that <i>die</i> just don't belong in the lexicon. We say <i>one pee</i> or — and this is a precise analogy to <i>once dice</i> — <i><b>one pence</b></i>.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-72812524967619253882014-12-21T02:03:47.290+00:002014-12-21T02:03:47.290+00:00Hooray! The OED agrees with me:
QUOTE
As in pence...Hooray! The OED agrees with me:<br /><br />QUOTE<br />As in <i>pence</i>, the plural <i>s</i> retains its original breath sound, probably because these words were not felt as ordinary plurals, but as collective words; compare the original plural <i>truce</i>, where the collective sense has now passed into a singular. This pronunciation is indicated in later spelling by -<i>ce</i><br />UNQUOTEDavid Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-33840522047649190832014-12-21T01:53:27.338+00:002014-12-21T01:53:27.338+00:00I'm amazed to read that some British speakers ...I'm amazed to read that some British speakers say <i>die</i>. I don't remember ever hearing the it spoken by a Brit — except when discussing the <b>word </b> as opposed to the thing. <br /><br />Yes, we say <i>The die is cast</i>, but how many of us realise that it refers to dice? I had no idea until I learnt as a schoolboy about Caesar's words in Latin, and the way they are translated into English. A odd translation, since we never speak of <i><b>casting</b> dice</i>. And an odd metaphor for our culture, since we don't think of a throw as <b>irreversible</b>. The way we use dice in games it would just never occur to us to say <i>'Can I have that throw again?'</i>.<br /><br />And surely <i>dice</i> is a <b>collective</b> — a bit like <i>cattle</i> — rather than a plural. It's a total violation of the way English plurals sound. If the final sound of the singular form is a vowel, then the plural form <b>must</b> end in a Z-sound.David Crosbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01858358459416955921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-89616514770909784332014-12-20T17:57:01.345+00:002014-12-20T17:57:01.345+00:00Since we seem short on Americans here, I'll ch...Since we seem short on Americans here, I'll chime in to note that everyone I've gamed with here cringes and mutters each and every single time we read "roll a dice" in an English rulebook. Being wrong for over 600 years doesn't make you less wrong! Colonists are supposed to be the ones breaking the language. I've never heard an American use "dice" as singular.VDorrnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-6870107230467513072014-10-26T01:52:37.272+00:002014-10-26T01:52:37.272+00:00Oddly enough, I've recently seen several insta...Oddly enough, I've recently seen several instances of the phrase "the die were cast." I.e., instead of dice being used in the singular, die is being used in the plural! The most recent example of this is in the very new book "The Godless" by Ben Peek. After seeing it there, I did a search on the internet and found several other examples of this usage.Simonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01152678374147671883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-12332897103734568342014-04-01T05:57:21.848+01:002014-04-01T05:57:21.848+01:00I'm not entirely familiar with "hie"...I'm not entirely familiar with "hie" so I looked it up to clarify, and your use of it ("...which I hie to the recycling while wrinkling my nose") seems to be missing a preposition.<br /><br />Based on the sources I looked at I would only use hie in that fashion in reference to an animal or possibly to machine I wished to personify.<br /><br />I do find interesting the similarity in meaning and sound of hie and hightail, given they have entirely different origins.<br /><br /><br />P.S. Wrinkling your nose in disgust? That seems a bit harsh, unless some athletic star was captured in illicit debauchery.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02138260302522477243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-20491790744338179092013-07-27T12:56:48.816+01:002013-07-27T12:56:48.816+01:00I spent a substantial part of my life as a die
-si...I spent a substantial part of my life as a die<br />-sinker ( in England may I add ). And, somewhat confusingly, always produced a pair of dies! .... BR. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-91864660538306465102012-09-02T10:27:35.169+01:002012-09-02T10:27:35.169+01:00One thing that strikes me in the sentence you quot...One thing that strikes me in the sentence you quote, more than the die-versus-dice issue, is the troubling use of "eponymous". Since the main character in The Dice Man is called Luke Rhinehart, how can he be called eponymous in any way?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-43956477642831361322011-04-30T06:04:57.885+01:002011-04-30T06:04:57.885+01:00I grew up using 'die' as the singular for ...I grew up using 'die' as the singular for 'dice' (speaking a mish-mash of BrE and CanE). But for 'the die is cast' I always thought that the 'die' in question was the metal kind one uses to cut things, so if the die is cast (in metal) one can't change the shape of what it's going to make...I suppose I must have been mistaken.ellahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13036209994244477176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-70838543472043410752011-03-24T12:30:38.731+00:002011-03-24T12:30:38.731+00:00I'd never heard of "die" until I pla...I'd never heard of "die" until I played a game with American friends as a child... but then some very proper English gentleman with good (BrE!) public school educations assured me it was "die", so I'm not sure!clairehttp://www.brusselsclaire.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-63812745024761255442010-09-22T15:45:22.843+01:002010-09-22T15:45:22.843+01:00It's been said that the plural of spouse is sp...It's been said that the plural of <i>spouse</i> is <i>spice</i>, though I suspect the experience of actual polygamists doesn't really bear this out.John Cowanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11452247999156925669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-34251520095842785492009-01-17T19:04:00.000+00:002009-01-17T19:04:00.000+00:00Hi! I came across this great explanation when I j...Hi! I came across this great explanation when I joked with My Own BH that the plural of lie must then be lice. (She was not amused.)<BR/>So, are there any other plurals that take the "-ce" ending? Except for leading me here, El Goog has been unhelpful.Voltamancerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07623191948584500698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-67474815728327084502008-06-11T09:14:00.000+01:002008-06-11T09:14:00.000+01:00Just a thought, but from what I can remember, Rhin...Just a thought, but from what I can remember, Rhinehart's character in The Dice Man uses two dice to make his decisions for most of the book.<BR/><BR/>Okay, so the commenter in the Grauniad wrote 'rolling a dice' not 'rolling dice', but I thought it worth mentioning.<BR/><BR/>Apologies for commenting on such an old post. I've only recently discovered the site and I've been traipsing through the archives during this last week to soothe the pedantic monster that slumbers within.<BR/><BR/>Keep up the good work.<BR/><BR/>JAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28787909.post-47402537937249198652008-02-11T02:29:00.000+00:002008-02-11T02:29:00.000+00:00I first discovered that "die" is the singular of "...I first discovered that "die" is the singular of "dice" when I studied probability theory at university. Using "dice" as a singular noun just sounds so wrong. People who study probability theory typically go on to become statisticians and then learn that "datum" is the singular to "data." But even fewer people know this and often use "data" for both singular and plural and it<BR/>has become common usage (at least in the US).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com