Ah - people who can define a compound adjective and others who can use
a colon effectively. What masters of the language are my respondents.
Trouble is, one becomes deeply paranoid about making even the most
trivial error. I reserve the right to elegantly split infinitives, OK.
(No question mark - it's stronger than rhetorical).
Now - as to the small change. Pennies would be the plural of the
individual penny coins which I suspect, like the Australian cent are no
longer tender. Pence is the multiple of the division, as in 'twenty
pence' (a single coin). Calling it a twenty penny coin would be odd.
Which is why 'pence' would be unknown in the US where 'penny' is merely
slang for a single coin. (Let's avoid nails).
And the gallon is certainly a variable quantity given that the litre of
Glennfiddich overproof that I'm working my way through at present is
somewhat less than an Imperial quart and significantly more than a US
quart. So where that leaves your hat is problematic - possibly on the
drunken head of that very cheap hooker who is playing for my old school
thirds.
And finally - no-one puts shit in a sack or ten gallons of gas (or
liquid) into a 4WD. In neither case could you expect to get to the end
of the road. This I know to be a fact.
AndrewF
Foundation Director, Babel Institute of International Obfuscation
On 25/11/2004, at 3:02 AM, Walt Wayman wrote:
> Piers has nailed it down. I'll countersink the nail head.
>
> In the phrase "fifty cent piece," the words "fifty" and "cent"
> together constitute a compound adjective, which the more persnickety
> of us insist should be hyphenated, as in, "A fifty-cent piece is worth
> fifty cents."
>
> "Cent" is like "gallon," "pound," "dollar," and the like.
>
> We all know that a blivet is nine POUNDS of s**t in a five-POUND sack.
>
> We would say, "He was wearing a ten-GALLON hat while he pumped ten
> GALLONS of gas into his SUV."
>
> "I was fined fifty DOLLARS for propositioning an undercover lady cop I
> thought was a fifty-DOLLAR hooker."
>
> And so it goes.
>
> Walt, who usually gets 38 exposures on a 36-exposure roll.
>
> --
> "Anything more than 500 yards from
> the car just isn't photogenic." --
> Edward Weston
>
> -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: "Piers Hemy" <piers@xxxxxxxx>
>>
>> OK, I'll bite.
>>
>> You are both at least partially correct, but you are talking about
>> different
>> animals.
>>
>> In the phrase "fifty cents" 'cents' is a plural noun, just as
>> 'dollars' in
>> "worth fifty dollars".
>>
>> In the phrase "fifty cent stamp" 'fifty cent' is adjectival,
>> describing the
>> stamp, just as 'fifty dollar' dscribes the bill in "fifty dollar
>> bill".
>>
>> As to whether the plural of 'penny' is 'pennies' or 'pence' - I think
>> it is
>> a question of context. A defined number of them would require
>> 'pence',
>> whereas an indeterminate amount, or a context in which you emphasise
>> that
>> there aren't many of them, or emphasise the coins themselves rather
>> than
>> their worth, would require 'pennies'. "I had thirty five pence to
>> spend"
>> compared to "I had barely two pennies to rub together"
>>
>> But cent as the plural of cent? Not over here! But then, we don't
>> have any
>> cents over here.
>>
>> HTH!
>>
>> --
>> Piers
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx] On
>> Behalf
>> Of Moose
>> Sent: 24 November 2004 10:31
>> To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
>> Subject: [OM] Re: Flash Q and minor rant
>>
>> Andrew Fildes wrote:
>>
>>> As the convention (I checked with all of them by phone) is that the
>>> plural of cent is cent - as in fifty cent stamp - then the possessive
>>> is cent's. No?
>>> Sheepishly,
>>>
>> At least here in the states, there are still a few things that cost 50
>> cents, such as the stamp you mention. If I pay for one with a dollar,
>> my
>> change is 50 cents. A fifty dollar bill is by definition worth fifty
>> dollars. I'll leave it to a language scholar to define the difference
>> between the two forms of usage.
>>
>> Moose
>>
>>
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