I believe I have an answer to the question posed in Calling Steven Pinker. The solution was suggested by my friend Mike, who, by his own admission, has no expertise from which to speak, other than that he spends a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing. I have no expertise from which to judge Mike’s answer, but it feels right.
Incidentally, the answer I’m about to outline is my own twisted version of what Mike suggested, so he only bears partial blame if the following is hideously wrong:
The names of European currencies pluralize normally because we don’t think of them as foreign words. I.e., the word “franc” is the just the English name for the French currency. We tend to appropriate currency names both from countries that we have been in contact with for a long time, and from countries whose languages share roots with our own.
Incidentally, Mike pointed out that my assertion that “every single non-Asian currency [pluralizes] normally” is wrong. I would say “one lira, two lira,” for example, probably by analogy with certain English irregulars such as “criteria” and “strata.” Also, the official plural of Euro is Euro, but few English-speakers adhere to this convention.
Asian currencies pluralize irregularly because we don’t regard them as English words. We have no intuition for how they are supposed to decline. This is true not just of currencies but of any Asian word. Beer is a handy example. “One pijiu, two pijiu.”
So there it is. The only other entry came from my friend Nik, who suggested that the answer to my question might be found in the fact that I am a “fucking asshole.” After careful consideration, the judges decided that Nik’s theory was not so much a theory as a crude ad hominem attack.
By the way, if any of Nik’s friends, family members, or coworkers would like to see photographs of Nik wearing a man-sized diaper and wandering the streets of Manhattan, please email me. Complete strangers are also encouraged to make inquiries. Glossies are available for a small fee.
And now a new linguistic puzzle, this one, coincidentally, also money-related. There are six languages that appear on every note of Chinese currency. The first four are Mandarin, Pinyin, Tibetan, and Mongolian. The fifth looks like Arabic, but more likely is Uigur. The last is a complete mystery, and no Chinese person I’ve asked has any idea. As it happens, the letters are Roman. For example, these words appear on a 100-yuan note:
Cunghgoz Yinzminz Yinzhangz it bakmaenz
Anyone know what this is?
