Q: 'die', 'dice'

[Dorine S. Houston, Director]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
But then, balls always come in pairs, so it would have to
be plural.

Dorine

"Geoffrey S. Nathan" wrote:

> ----------------------------Original message----------------------------
> At 07:31 AM 4/4/2001 -0400, Richard Coates wrote:
> >I think it is curious that we dice with death and do not die with it. Few
> >English verbs are derived by conversion from a plural noun - the ones I can
> >think of are colloquial, perhaps British, and rude (e.g. _I've ballsed up_
> >`I've made a mistake', `fouled things up').
>
> Still curiouser is the (apparently relatively) new form 'dicey'
> (surprisingly cited by the OED no earlier than 1950).  For those who deal
> in lexical phonology style strata this formation is OK but it certainly
> shows the loss of any plural sense as early as mid 20th century.  On the
> other hand, further to Richard's example, in American English there is
> 'ballsy' (showing gumption, daring).

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dorine S. Houston, Director, Institute for Global Communication
1300 Spruce St., Philadelphia, PA 19107 USA  215-893-8400
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