Superbowl X[ ]
Feb. 28th, 2005 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mattlistenerI have no interest in football, but I am somewhat a fan of numbers, so I've found myself thinking about this.
Folks are starting to notice that the next superbowl will be "Superbowl XL", and noting the obvious riffs thereupon. It would be neat to see -- most folks learn to read Roman numerals by osmosis, and may not be familiar with the subtraction rules. For that matter, do any of us know all the subtraction rules? Following the Roman numeral standards, do you know the proper way to write 45? 99?
45 = XLV
99 = XCIX
I'm predicting that they'll call it Superbowl XXXX instead. Reason: XL, XLI, etc don't *look* like Superbowl Numbers. Remember how they used to put a nice long roman numeral at the end of movie credits? Do you recall seeing a MMIV last year?
Either way, it'll be interesting to see what they do with Superbowl XXXXX / Superbowl L / Superbowl 50.
Folks are starting to notice that the next superbowl will be "Superbowl XL", and noting the obvious riffs thereupon. It would be neat to see -- most folks learn to read Roman numerals by osmosis, and may not be familiar with the subtraction rules. For that matter, do any of us know all the subtraction rules? Following the Roman numeral standards, do you know the proper way to write 45? 99?
45 = XLV
99 = XCIX
I'm predicting that they'll call it Superbowl XXXX instead. Reason: XL, XLI, etc don't *look* like Superbowl Numbers. Remember how they used to put a nice long roman numeral at the end of movie credits? Do you recall seeing a MMIV last year?
Either way, it'll be interesting to see what they do with Superbowl XXXXX / Superbowl L / Superbowl 50.
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-28 09:04 pm (UTC)Yes. In fact, I recall quite well how amused I was when Y2K rolled around and the lengthy MCMLXXXVII (and so forth) got replaced by the much shorter MM. And then they started growing again -- MMI, MMII, MMIII -- then down again, MMIV, MMV. It's kind of cool. The Roman-numeral representation of the year will never again be as short as it was five years ago. (Unless there's a Roman numeral for 5000? There probably is, actually.)