Comments on: A fistful of Euro[s]?

By: Terry

Terry — Tue, 09 Sep 2003 01:26:49 +0000

Many years ago I was involved in the negotiation of a construction contract in Taiwan. On the last day, in the final pre-signing meeting, there was a protracted discussion in both Cantonese and Mandarin, neither of which I speak. At the end of the discussion, suitably concurred in by all present, I asked my Taiwanese negotiating partner what all that was about.

He replied “We were deciding on the correct character to represent your name.”

You all have taken me back down memory lane.

By: Aidan Kehoe

Aidan Kehoe — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 12:50:26 +0000

Nick; “yoyo” is getting popular in Ireland.

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 12:23:31 +0000

Nick, not around here, but I’m vigourously encouraging the Quebecois term “piasse” from “piastre”.

By: Nick Barlow

Nick Barlow — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 04:38:40 +0000

And of course, all this discussion of pluralisation doesn’t yet include what might happen in Britain where the Euro gets to meet the so-called “greengrocer’s apostrophe” and we get Euro’s rather than Euro or Euros. Though I have also seen suggestions that as it an -o ending it should pluralise as Euroes in the style of Hero.

While we’re on the subject, have any common slang terms for Euro emerged among the Eurozone countries yet?

By: vaara

vaara — Fri, 05 Sep 2003 03:46:43 +0000

Ironically, the abbreviation for ECU in French would be something like “UME” (unit? mon?taire europ?enne) and thus nothing like ECU, or even ?cu.

I think I would have preferred something more exotic, along the lines of ngultrum, quetzal or tugrik. But it was not to be.

By: David Weman

David Weman — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 20:09:16 +0000

“schemozzle”

What a lovely word!

By: Jurjen

Jurjen — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 20:06:14 +0000

Oh hi, Mark (Mark’s one of my closest friends, and the closest thing I have ot a little brother).

David, I recall a sketch on BBC Radio 4′s “Weekending” programme back in ’94 or ’95 on what to call it. The German was arguing for “Euromark,” the Belgian wanted “eurofrank” and “eurofranc,” the French guy wanted to hang on to “?cu,” etc. Finally, somebody shouts that they should have lunch and try to sort out this euro-brouhaha in the afternoon. Suddenly, everyone goes “euro-brouhaha, yes, that’ll work…”
But then the French guy says “It is a good Fransh word” whereupon the Dutch guy (the accent was surprisingly well done) “I sink you vill find it iss Dutch!” and the whole schemozzle starts all over again.

By: David

David — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 19:53:30 +0000

IIRC, the French wanted to turn ECU into “écu”, the name of a mediaeval French coin, which would have been dignified by history as well as more sonorous.

By: David

David — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 18:00:37 +0000

Doug, yes, I remember that this issue was brought up at the time when they decided to call it the euro. Before that it was known in English as the ECU (European Currency Unit), which had the benefit (if I recall correctly) that it was phonetically similar in all the official EU languages.

A nice proposal I once read was that we should call it the pecu, derived from the Latin root “pecunia”, meaning money.

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 15:33:07 +0000

”I don’t think I was ever formally taught which should be used when, I just picked it up as I went along. The rule of thumb, I believe, is to distinguish between the Euro as a monetary unit (particularly when exact numbers are used) and as a physical object.”
Jur, I think I was formally taught which to use when, and I’m fairly sure this was the gist of it, although I think Vaara’s right that it shouldn’t be capitalised.

By the way, I like the blog guys.