Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Why do clock and watch dials use a quadruple "I" as the Roman numeral for 4?
This is for Matthew Alice:
Why do clock and watch dials always use a quadruple "I" as the Roman numeral for 4, but everywhere else the Roman numeral for 4 is "IV"?
-- Befuddled Bob, telephonically
Call it tradition, call it lack of imagination -- but that's the way we've always done it. Since way before Timex but a few thousand years after the Egyptian stick-in-the-ground clocks. When Romans adopted Egypt's sundial, they marked the hours with their cumbersome, goofy numerals. The number 4 in the original Roman system was IIII. The Romans' early numbering technique was all additive; 444 had to be written CCCCXXXXIIII (400+40+4). It was undoubtedly some overworked stone carver who came up with the subtractive system, in which 444 could be written CDXLIV ([500-100]+[50-10]+[5-1]), 6 characters instead of 12. Sundial makers and later clock and watch makers never changed the old IIII. Actually, more curious than the IIII is the fact that 9 on watches is written in the new Roman subtractive system, IX. Perhaps VIIII wouldn't fit neatly on a small clock or watch face. Probably won't make much difference in a generation or so, when digital is the law. How many kids today can read a dial clock anyway, let alone a clock with Roman numerals?
Here's something you might be interested in.
Why do clock and watch dials use a quadruple "I" as the Roman numeral for 4?
Why do clock and watch dials use a quadruple "I" as the Roman numeral for 4?
This is for Matthew Alice:
Why do clock and watch dials always use a quadruple "I" as the Roman numeral for 4, but everywhere else the Roman numeral for 4 is "IV"?
-- Befuddled Bob, telephonically
Call it tradition, call it lack of imagination -- but that's the way we've always done it. Since way before Timex but a few thousand years after the Egyptian stick-in-the-ground clocks. When Romans adopted Egypt's sundial, they marked the hours with their cumbersome, goofy numerals. The number 4 in the original Roman system was IIII. The Romans' early numbering technique was all additive; 444 had to be written CCCCXXXXIIII (400+40+4). It was undoubtedly some overworked stone carver who came up with the subtractive system, in which 444 could be written CDXLIV ([500-100]+[50-10]+[5-1]), 6 characters instead of 12. Sundial makers and later clock and watch makers never changed the old IIII. Actually, more curious than the IIII is the fact that 9 on watches is written in the new Roman subtractive system, IX. Perhaps VIIII wouldn't fit neatly on a small clock or watch face. Probably won't make much difference in a generation or so, when digital is the law. How many kids today can read a dial clock anyway, let alone a clock with Roman numerals?
Comments