Vienna's desserts, schnitzel (fwd)

[Mark A Mandel]

It looks as if I accidentally sent this only to Michael, not to the
list.

-- Mark A. Mandel


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 09:02:22 -0400

On Mon, 15 Jul 2002, Michael Quinion wrote:

#> Again, it would appear that EURO is the plural, but I heard "EUROS"
#> on BBC just now. And the BBC is always right?
#
#There is some confusion over this. It rests on a misunderstanding of
#the original EU directive, which seemed to suggest that "euro" is
#invariant in the plural in all circumstances. This is observed by
#many organisations in formal documents, including the Irish and
#British central banks and other financial institutions. However, in
#popular usage the usual orthographic rules take precedence.

And the committee that designed the Euro symbol also prescribed a very
specific form for it -- the ends of the crossbars to be slanted at so
many degrees, etc. -- to be used in all contexts, whether or not it
harmonized with the font and style of the text. That, too, has wisely
been ignored.

-- Mark A. Mandel