Some elegant, clear examples Walt.
And you finally explained the meaning of something I have grossly
misunderstood all these years: "packing a 38" is evidently not what I
thought it might be. Or is it?
--
Piers
PS Note stylistically deliberate use of conjunctions with which to begin a
sentence.
PPS Note also in the line above: deliberate avoidance of a preposition to
end a sentence with.
PPPS ...
-----Original Message-----
From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Walt Wayman
Sent: 24 November 2004 16:03
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] Re: Flash Q and minor rant
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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