Q: 'die', 'dice'

[Steve Long]

----------------------------Original message----------------------------

In a message dated 4/7/2001 2:28:56 PM, ph1u at andrew.cmu.edu writes:

<< "Dice" stood for both singular and plural, definite and
indefinite ("Why don't you boys play Monopoly?"-"We haven't got a dice"),
but I share Robert Orr's intuition that the indefinite singular form is
quite rare, so that it was usually irrelevant whether "the dice" was
singular or plural.>>

To add a slant from a different part of the world, "die" was definitely the
technical term for a single die in Brooklyn.  As in, "uh-uh, ya only trow one
die.  Da book sez so."    In my youth (yUt) we all seemed to believe that
this was because we were a last bastion of the accurate American English.
Now, I suspect this erudite use of "die" was due entirely to the
authoritative influence of the rule book writers at the Milton-Bradley Co.

Incidentally, if you did roll two dice and it came up two threes, universally
these were described as "trays."

Steve Long