"The Mystery of Numerical Notation on the Dial Plate - 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV"
Here is the uneditorialized headline. Especially it is called dial plate, not clock face.
On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV
151–160 of 270 posts
Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV
#152> The Seiko Museum Ginza
Has someone been to this place? Is it worth a visit?
Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV
#153When talking about wrong usage of Roman numbers, the first that comes to mind is a well known, and much copied, tattoo that writes 1975 not as MCMLXXV.
Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Britain the end credits for BBC programmes would finish with the final line: © BBC MCMXCVI I can generally figure them out before the line has hit the top of the screen. Of course, it was much easier a few years later: © BBC MM or now © BBC MMXXIV
Having been amused by the headlined tiny factlet about clock faces when I was a child, I observe that the pseudish BBC copyright declaration system is, apart from the odd regnal number in law citations and apart from 19th century hymnals, pretty much my only significant exposure to Roman numerals through my entire life. The last time I even saw a clock face with Roman numerals, it was when clearing the house of a per…
> I have three clocks within view right now as I type this, one on an answer 'phone, and they are all digital readouts. None of them has an analogue option.
It is at least simple to have an analogue clock face on iPhones, albeit with a digital one too - can't resist sharing screenshot considering what my next calendar appointment happens to be... https://i.ibb.co/0JgJL0p/IMG-3479.jpg (no it doesn't take 15 minutes, but is needed once a week - it's a very old clock.)
Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
At no point was all of modern India under one administrative entity until modern India. Even British India wasn’t one state, it was a patchwork of provinces governed by the British and Princely States. Modern India only came into being in 1948, when the Princes were gently persuaded to take a hike. But you’re right in the broader sense, that Indian people feel that India has been around for longer even if it hasn’t.…
That's not true? Maurya and Gupta empires spanned nearly all of the Indian subcontinent.
Not the South of India. And they held areas in the North West that aren’t part of modern India.
Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I mean... most European countries (modulo some exceptions like Germany) existed (non-continuously) for at least a thousand years. This is interesting to me. What does it mean for a country to exist non-continuously? I can understand making the case under some sort of continuity despite dramatic changes in e.g. control of land or type of government. Sort of like a nation-state Ship of Theseus. But I don't understand…
Mostly through people still living in the same place remembering the glory days of old. If you look at Poland and Lithuania, which became Poland-Lithuania, which roughly split so that Poland went into Prussia and Lithuania into Russia; where Prussia lasted for 100 years and ended with WW1 where Poland re-emerged and had their common sense of identity enhanced by Hitler almost immediately re-invading, and Lithuania ex…
State of Israel had 2000 years of disconinuity, both the state and the (spoken) language.
Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Like spelling, a lot of things used to be far less standardized.
Or, rather, our idea of what the standard was, skewed as it is by survivorship bias and coming centuries after the fact, is superficial and wrong.
It’s more the case that the world is big and communication used to be slow. So regional variations would develop. Sometimes becoming their own language, given enough time.
It’s easy to forget how hard it is to standardise a large populous given everything these days can be shared at near-to-light-speed but even today you have regional slang. Terms that might be common in the north of a country but alien to southerners.
So I find it entirely believable that there were multiple “standards” for Roman numerals that spanned different regions and periods of time.
Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Britain the end credits for BBC programmes would finish with the final line: © BBC MCMXCVI I can generally figure them out before the line has hit the top of the screen. Of course, it was much easier a few years later: © BBC MM or now © BBC MMXXIV
Having been amused by the headlined tiny factlet about clock faces when I was a child, I observe that the pseudish BBC copyright declaration system is, apart from the odd regnal number in law citations and apart from 19th century hymnals, pretty much my only significant exposure to Roman numerals through my entire life. The last time I even saw a clock face with Roman numerals, it was when clearing the house of a per…
I collect watches, and I have examples of various types (diver, pilot, etc, etc). The only thing I don't have is any watch with Roman Numerals, I don't like the way they look.
That said I have a bunch of analog clocks around my flat, and zero digital ones. It's actually been kinda fun watching our child learn to tell the time:
With an analog clock he pretty quickly understood the idea that one rotation of the seconds-hand meant a minute moved, and when the minute hand went all the way round the clock it was another hour.
But digital time? He didn't understand how something went from 19:59 to 20:00, for example. So he'd always say "Daddy what the clock is?"
(Finnish is is native tongue, he speaks to me in English, but some of the phrasing is obviously "I translated this in my head".)
Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
India. was taught roman numerals upto 1000 in elementary school math, 5th grade or so. Quickly forgot.
Indian numbers seem almost as messy as Roman numerals though. Verbally, the system seems to go thousand -> lakh -> crore -> thousand crore -> lakh crore, but then stop there, rarely extending to crore crore or inducting any farther. Meanwhile commas don't seem to follow the verbal convention - instead showing up every two digits even after a crore, so a thousand crore looks more like ten hundred crore, and a lakh cro…
> Verbally, the system seems to go thousand -> lakh -> crore -> thousand crore -> lakh crore
Most people don't deal in these numbers, beyond the crores. And in sciences, exponential notation is norm anyway.
There's no way it is as messy as Roman numerals.
Re: On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV
#160In Latin, sometimes numbers have synonyms, like 18 (two from twenty or eight and ten). In my mind, the Roman system was very obvious. Then I learned to read a little French, and had genuine curiosity about the reasoning behind this soixante-dix-neuf character. edit: sometimes I wonder if arithmetic arose simply from naming numbers
French used to have a sort of base 20 numbering system.
And it is more like our current number system arose because it makes arithmetic so much simpler.