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Has no one told GW that the singular for "dice" is "die"? Or is this a British thing?

Well, I live in England and I say 1 die, but then, I was born in the U.S. so perhaps that's why. But it does seem unlikely anyone's told GW this, as they always say 1 dice, so it may well be a British thing.

Still trying to maintain their kiddie customer base GW didn't want to much death in their books ;P.

It's not a British thing, I think it is to avoid confusion within the younger years and to not confuse it with 'die' as in 'that character will die'.

The OC-D

Well i say (and try to encorage others to say) 1 die.

I do the same cheapbuster. Well not enough to come across as an ass, but it seems to be extremely common now. Like codexes instead of codices.

I was always told that one 'dice' is a die however from what I can gather in modern English both are considered correct.

Both are considered correct by illiterates, anyway.

I will leave it to users to take notice of that fact, and form their own impression of the skill level of GW editorial staff.

Grammatically speaking '1 dice' refers to one out of many and 'a die' refers to one singularly.

I think it may be a culture thing......

Does that mean the singular of "mice" is "mie"?

or the plural of "pie" is "pice"?

and what is the singular of "twice"?

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:

and what is the singular of "twice"?

once

It is a common mistake over here, the majority of people say 'dice' when referring to a single die.

As mentioned above: 'Codexes' instead of 'Codices' (and index/indices);

Datum is singular of data; I expect not many people know or use that (although I doubt many people need to )

orkyben wrote:

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:

and what is the singular of "twice"?

once

Win

I personalyl feel weird calling it a Die. Then again I was born in china....

The quality of the GW editorial staff would only be in question for this if the GW usage was inconsistent, which it is not.

From OS X's version of the New Oxford American Dictionary, a note:

USAGE Historically, dice is the plural of die, but in modern standard English, dice is both the singular and the plural: : throw the dice could mean a reference to two or more dice, or to just one. In fact, the singular die (rather than dice) is increasingly uncommon.

Of course, that entry disagrees with my copy of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, 2001.

So that means that everyone's wrong since two dictionaries disagree, right?

It very well could be cultural (a british friend of mine freaked out when I first used "drug" as the perfect participle of the verb "to drag"), but it's probably just a mistake.

Although, I'd much rather they fix problems with the rules before they fix problems with their grammar.

Ailaros wrote:It very well could be cultural (a british friend of mine freaked out when I first used "drug" as the perfect participle of the verb "to drag"), but it's probably just a mistake.

Yeah never heard that before - 'dragged' is the correct form

It's to try to reduce confusion among people that would not understand dice = plural of die.

I think it is cultural. Check what Wiktionary says:

"Using the plural dice as a singular instead of die is considered incorrect by most authorities, but has come into widespread use in Britain."

Ulver wrote:

Ailaros wrote:It very well could be cultural (a british friend of mine freaked out when I first used "drug" as the imperfect participle of the verb "to drag"), but it's probably just a mistake.

Yeah never heard that before - 'dragged' is the correct form

Actually, "dragged" is the preterite participle of the verb "to drag". Like using "dice" to represent a single die, British english also confuses participles.

It's always struck me as interesting how immigrants (and/or colonists) retain the form of their language from when they left. In the case of American english, it's full of lots of words that British english lost after the split.

Ailaros wrote:

Ulver wrote:

Ailaros wrote:It very well could be cultural (a british friend of mine freaked out when I first used "drug" as the imperfect participle of the verb "to drag"), but it's probably just a mistake.

Yeah never heard that before - 'dragged' is the correct form

Actually, "dragged" is the preterite participle of the verb "to drag". Like using "dice" to represent a single die, British english also confuses participles.

It's always struck me as interesting how immigrants (and/or colonists) retain the form of their language from when they left. In the case of American english, it's full of lots of words that British english lost after the split.

I am hoping that Welsh becomes the new language of Britain. It seems to be a language created soley to annoy tourists and people that aren't Welsh... or are English.

ph34r wrote:It's to try to reduce confusion among people that would not understand dice = plural of die.

I've known this since I was like six, said "gimme the dice!" and got corrected. I thought it was just general, common knowledge. That said, I don't really care that GW does it in their rulebooks. It's kind of a charming quirk.

So there is nothing wrong with saying "The dice is cast"?

Ehh, whatever. A dice is a dice....I mean die..

orkyben wrote:

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:

and what is the singular of "twice"?

once

I think I have to sig that.

Well i'd say it would be really confusing to yell at your opponents model:

"Die you son of a!"

Whilst I know that die is the singular of die, growing up in England, myself and my friends would refer to a singular die as a dice all the time, s it may be one of them cultural malarkeys.