Manic Miner 3D

[IRF]

I'm not sure why the word isn't bicenarian?

[andrewbroad]

1 hour ago, IRF said:

I'm not sure why the word isn't bicenarian?

Because it’s from the Latin word vicenārius.

[IRF]

Conversely then, why don't we ride vicycles? 😂

[jetsetdanny]

And why do people - at least in the U.S. - drive on parkways and park on driveways? 🤪

[andrewbroad]

16 hours ago, IRF said:

Conversely then, why don't we ride vicycles? 😂

Because a bicycle has two wheels, not twenty.

[IRF]

But looking at the structure of this and related words:

tricenarian: tri=3

octogenarian: oct=8

'genarian' (interchangeable with 'cenarian') seems to relate to a 'generation' - which here is defined as a decade?

So an octogenarian is in their eighth 'generation' - although actually they're in their ninth decade, now that I think about it!  So that's my theory shot down in flames!! 😂

***

Anyway, v's and b's do seem to be interchangeable in many languages, so I still maintain that if the English language had evolved slightly differently, then we might be riding around on vicycles (which sounds painful!), or looking back wistfully on bicenarian dreams (which sound a bit kinky!) 😁

Edited January 29, 2021 by IRF

[IRF]

On 1/29/2021 at 12:49 AM, andrewbroad said:

Because a bicycle has two wheels, not twenty.

By the same logic, a tricycle should have thirty wheels? And a vice-president should be twentieth in command, not second? 😜

... I'll get me coat.

Edited February 1, 2021 by IRF

[andrewbroad]

15 hours ago, IRF said:

And a vice-president should be twentieth in command, not second? 😜

I thought vice presidents were so named for their immoral or wicked behaviour. 😉

[jetsetdanny]

That's a broad understanding of the term "vice president" (pun intended) 😁

[IRF]

On 2/1/2021 at 9:33 AM, IRF said:

... I'll get me coat.

Incidentally, prior to me writing that, I had tried to translate "I'll get my coat" into Latin, but it came up as "Et lorica meum", but when I checked how that translated back into English, it ended up as "The coat is".  So I gave up on that.

Oh, and for Danny's benefit (and anyone else who might not be familiar with it), "I'll get me coat" is the punchline of a regular character from the 1990's BBC comedy sketch show 'The Fast Show'.  The character is in polite company (like a dinner party or something), after a few moments of everyone talking on a subject on which he is evidently out of his depth (like politics), he makes an inappropriate/irrelevant/childish/offensive gag - leading to stern silence from everyone else who just stare at him [if it was an American show you would see tumbleweed floating past at this point] - and then the character in question says, in a thick Brummie accent, "I'll get me coat".