In my recent explanation of my daffynition of Krobylos I used (several times) the word "dice" as a singular noun. In a PM tinman pointed out that the singular is "die".
He is of course perfectly correct.
However modern usage - and modern dictionaries agree - tends to have "dice" as a singular noun (pl. dice) with die being given as an alternate form by the dictionaries.

In fact apart from occasional facetious and pedantic use by old codgers like me I have NEVER heard the proper singular in normal speech and would say that in England dice has now all but driven die out of the language (except in the set expression "the die is cast") and is the preferred singular.

What's the situation in the US. Wjat would someone shooting craps in Vegas say if he dropped one of the things on the floor. "pick up the die." or "Pick up the dice"?

And do other Brits agree with me that "dice" is now so common as to be the preferred version?

Die, along with agendum, medium and criterion are singulars that I always use.

I agree that "dice" has become the singular as well as the plural form for many British folk. Pedants like me still use "die", but we are in an increasingly small minority.

I use die as the singular (living on in the phrase "the die is cast") and dice as plural, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's falling out of use.

Funny, but I always say die for one of the little cube thingies, and dice if there are 2 or more. "The die is cast" is generally not even about the cuboid doo-hickies, but rather about a die that would be used as a mold, right? So it doesn't even come into the equation.

Of course, then you have interesting usages, like the two beauty shops:

Doo or Dye

Curl Up and Dye (from _Earth Girls are Easy_)

I still say "die," though I have heard the singular of "dice" said both ways. The fact is, I don't say it that much now that we don't have little ones around playing board games.

"The die is cast" is generally not even about the cuboid doo-hickies, but rather about a die that would be used as a mold, right?

O, poor Caesar. Have they forgotten you even in Ohio? Jacta alea est. "The die is cast." Said by Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon has nothing to do with metallurgy and lots [sic] to do with knucklebones, hazards, or good old-fashioned dice.

Ah well - so much for MY classical education!

Don't blame Ohio, though. There happen to be many people in Ohio much better with details and better educated than this humble, gregarious woman.

Sigh.

The only time I use "dice" is when I have a knife in my hand and I'm wielding it against a vegetable. If I mean a single gaming piece, I say "die." This gripes me as much as people's saying "battery" when they mean a single electric cell, but I seem to be the only person in the whole USA who knows what a battery is, INCLUDING the manufacturers.

Asa the curmudgeon

So what the heck is a battery?

I know I have one in my car (so it won't die...

and I have two in my flashlight.

If they're not batteries, Asa, what are they?

I am dying to hear about this battery gripe myself...I am sure I have made that mistake sometime in my life since I am completely clueless.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
I am dying to hear about this battery gripe myself...I am sure I have made that mistake sometime in my life since I am completely clueless.

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From one of my dictionaries: "A collection of two or more galvanic cells electrically connected to work together to produce electric energy." You see, just one of what most people call a "battery" is NOT a battery; two or more constitute a battery. KHC, your car has a collection of six cells connected together, so it IS a batery! A 9 volt battery is a collection of six 1.5 volt cells. But a so-called 1.5 volt "battery" is just an electric cell, not a battery.

The term was earlier used militarily to denote a grouping of canon. And now it means any grouping of similar things, such as a battery of tests in school.

Now, are you SHOCKED to learn that your 3-cell flashlight has only ONE battery?

Mr. Postman,

I'm absolutely electrified! Now, with all this knowledge, I'll be the life of the party...

Asa, that's fascinating. Never knew it.

So many misspeak that the usage you mention as being erroneous has now been accepted by
AHD (Electricity a. Two or more connected cells ... b. A single cell ...) and MW (two or more cells ...; also: a single cell ...). But from now on, I'm going to stick to the precise usage.

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Originally posted by wordnerd:
Asa, that's fascinating. Never knew it.

So many misspeak that the usage you mention as being erroneous has now been accepted.

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Yes, the term has been assaulted and has suffered much battery. Now, KHC, I'm happy to hear that you weren't re-VOLTed!

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Originally posted by jheem: Jacta alea est. "The die is cast." Said by Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon.

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Got me curious. Shakespeare put the phrase in the mouth of his Julius Caesar, but the phrase was neither Shakespeare's invention nor Caesar's.

From the BBC: "The quote comes from Suetonius in his Lives of the Caesars. According to Suetonius, the words were 'Iacta alea est'; although if Caesar was quoting Menander, he'd have said either 'anerriphthô kubos' (as claimed by Plutarch and Appian) or the Latin equivalent - 'iacta alea esto', which means that somewhere along the line there may have been a spelling mistake in the Suetonius. Conversely, scholar Peter Wiseman (in his Roman Drama and Roman History, Exeter University Press, 1998, 61-63) has pointed out that 'anerriphthô kubos' is a proverb as well as a quote from Menander, and that Suetonius might have been quoting from a play about Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon.

PS: The Latin version is far more often written with Iacta rather than Jacta.

Clearly the "die" usage is MUCH more common in the US than it is here nowadays. Over here it's only die (sic) hard pedants who use it. I'll bet that if you took one of the little cubes out into the streets and did a survey fewer than ten per cent would even know that it's called a die not a dice, fewer still would use it and fewer still would care.

The Latin version is far more often written with Iacta rather than Jacta.

And in Caesar's day it would've been written: IACTA. They didn't have lowercase letters yet. When I learned Latin, besides learning the reconstructed Classical Latin pronuciation, I also learned to write j for semi-vocalic (think y) I and u for vocalic V. Force of habit, but it's hardly wrong. (I also learned to quote Greek authors using the Greek alphabet, but have fallen out of this habit.)

As for jacta est versus jacta esto, the former is "is cast" and the latter is "let it be cast".

As for Greek kubos it is the singular 'die, cubical die'. Anerriphthô kubos means 'the die is thrown'. So we're still talking about a game of chance as a metaphor for war, and not metal casting ...

I didn't know of the earlier quotation by Menander or it's possibly being a folk saying. Thanks for the information.

fewer than ten per cent would even know that it's called a die not a dice, fewer still would use it and fewer still would care.

Interesting, Bob, because I know that even my kids say "die." I have learned from this board that usually when meanings evolve or change (as in "moot point") that it begins to happen in the U.S. first, though "die" seems to have hung on here. Perhaps my conclusion is wrong.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,