Teacher Discussion Forums

Do you say A HUNDRED EURO or A HUNDRED EUROS?

I think we're supposed to say 100 Euro, but in practice everyone says "100 Euros". I'd say either are acceptable.

i say, "so what do i have to do, and when do i get paid?"

I'd say "either are acceptable" is unacceptable, and will give 100 Euros to the person who can show it to be correct.

Harzer

OK I'm going for the 100 Euro(s). i'm definitely of the opinion both are acceptable and will make two arguments

1) Euro ends in a vowel, think of other currencies which also end in vowels e.g Escudo, or Lira, I rarely (but sometimes do) hear people speak of 100 Liras, whereas I do hear 100 Escudos and 100 Escudo.

2) We should be less prescriptive and more descriptive about language - therefore the form(s) people are actually USING are acceptable......

I therefore submit that both 100 Euro and 100 Euros are correct!!!

PAY UP!!!

As usual I do not care much about what some expert or grammarian or teacher 'thinks' as correct. What I want to know is what people say, since I am not in the US or England, what people hear. EURO? EURO? Both? Depends? AmE BrE?

well in that case cftranslate, it's definitely BOTH

When are people going to find some balance and realize that "Be descriptive!" is not one of the 10 commandments. If no one had ever been prescriptive we would still be where Shakespeare was, spelling his own name 10 different ways.

Three points woodcutter -
1) We can now be descriptive precisely because we have had a prescriptive past -

2) Precisely who make up the 'rules' we are supposed to prescribe?
Euro is a NEW word - so which rule applies here???? and who decides???? - Who has been appointed 'keeper of the language'. Please don't misunderstand there are certain 'standards' I too say should be upheld for example not 'allowing' double negatives but.... there must be a limit

3) It is the nature of language to change - if it did not change - we would not be writing in the way we are now. We would not spell in the way we do now - the dictionaries of Samuel Johnson and the grammars of Rev Lowth would not have 'permitted' the spelling and grammar you have used in the message you posted.

So although I agree we should 'teach' a 'standard' form of the language - we do need to remain flexible where change does not result in a change of meaning or a lack of understanding

I probaby agree with you Helen, on the Euros issue. I get tired of the relentless feel-good sloganeering of educationalists though.

Our language has been (somewhat) standardized by self-appointed people telling other people that their way of doing it is wrong. That's how things get standardized, by those on high squashing life and variety. It's a bad thing in some ways, it's a good thing in other ways.

----"Our language has been (somewhat) standardized by self-appointed people telling other people that their way of doing it is wrong. That's how things get standardized, by those on high squashing life and variety."-----

No! Our language has been standardized by the language community converging on one or more forms. The 'self- appointed experts' merely describe the usage better than others, and give us a peg to hang our verbal clothes on.

Both Euro and Euros are permissable - as are both pound and pounds.

Prescription must follow on description; or to put it another way, in language as in medicine, you've got to get the prescription right, and that means make the correct diagnosis.

Yikes. I'm becoming too reactionary even for Stephen.

Do you not feel that the 200 years of ferocious and unabashed prescriptivism (on behalf of home counties english, in Britain) on the part of teachers, grammarians, dictionary makers, publishers and broadcasters prior to the 1960s had anything to do with this convergance? Did it appear from the thin air?

What is a dictionary if not a declaration of general "rightness" for one particular spelling and meaning? (Or more than one, if the dictionary maker happens to feel equivocal, which is unusual)

Nobody has told the school teachers that the era of prescriptivism is over either - they are still driving it all home even further.

(An attempt to stop them doing so and protect "Ebonics" in the Oakland area was resisted by African-American parents, worried that their offspring would be pigeon-holed, apparently)

Nobody's gonna shoot you if you choose to spell English as "english" or convergence as "convergance", woody.