Silly computer question

[kuhli]

I am just curious. Do you guys (from the UK) have a £ button on your keyboards standard?? Here in the US, we have the $ as a "shift-4" on the keyboard. For me to get the £, I have to "alt-0163".

And while I am at it, Chris, do you have a button for the €?? I don't, and have to copy and paste it into any document that I want to use it on.

[Emperor Oli]

Yes we do:

£ = Shift+3

$ = Shift+4

€ = Alt+4

[Chris Perkins]

Kuhli,

Yes we have the £ sign on all UK keyboards as standard. It's shift '3' and the $ is shift '4' smae as you. I think the UK keyboard omits the paragraph sign (or whatever you have on Shift '3'.

I use a UK keyboard, but I do know that since the EURO most newer European keyboards including the UK keyboards have an € key combination (usually alt+ctl+E I think)

The Euro symbol will also have an ASCII code like the 0163 that you use, but I don't know what it is, or even if it will be part of your character set.

[Sylvester]

€ is ctl+alt+4 some older keyboards don't have the € sign.

And Chris if i press ctl+alt+e i get é

(but i might have altered that so that when it comes to words like élite i can spell them correctly!)

[william]

Ok, we do have a £ which is shift+3, we have the dollars sign which is shift+4, but I have realised that on Microsoft Word, the euro sign can be any of these:

• Ctrl+alt+4
  
• Alt Gr+4
  
• Ctrl+alt+E
  

Oli, I don't think Alt+4 works on mine

[Master Jmd]

Yes we do:

£ = Shift+3

$ = Shift+4

€ = Alt+4

i have:

£ = shift + 3

$ = shift + 4

€ = Alt Gr + 4

...and there are other Alt combinations...

[Half Penny Jon]

€ is ctl+alt+4 some older keyboards don't have the € sign.

And Chris if i press ctl+alt+e i get é

(but i might have altered that so that when it comes to words like élite i can spell them correctly!)

My french teacher gave me a sheet which shows all of the letters with accents as well as other difficult letters.

ç, é, è!

[Emperor Oli]

Yeah, Will, I used the Alt Gr button for it and Master jMD, it was pointless just to practically copy my post

[william]

€ is ctl+alt+4 some older keyboards don't have the € sign.

And Chris if i press ctl+alt+e i get é

(but i might have altered that so that when it comes to words like élite i can spell them correctly!)

My french teacher gave me a sheet which shows all of the letters with accents as well as other difficult letters.

ç, é, è!

What are the codes for them them HPJ?

[Emperor Oli]

Ici!

[william]

Ici!

I didn't realise there was anything like that, thanks Oli

[Half Penny Jon]

Do you do french at school William?

[Sylvester]

Well i'm glad to find this one æ, but is there a long 's' in there anywhere?

You know one that looks like this, Æ’ but without the crossbar.

I've got a feeling i'm going to need one shortly.

[Sylvester]

Do you do french at school William?

don't most people?

[Sylvester]

i'd much rather have learned Latin it would have been far more use to me than French has been so far.

[Master Jmd]

i'd much rather have learned Latin it would have been far more use to me than French has been so far.

latin is horrrrrible!!!

[Emperor Oli]

It isn't! If you have never learnt it you can't know its beauty - Caecilius ad foro cum Metella sedebat! Multus sanguis fluit!

[Sylvester]

yes but i've come across many books that i could have used in my history essays, unfortunately i don't read latin, if i had then it might have helped me considerably when all the english ones had been taken out of the library before i had got to them, the latin ones never leave!

And then again it's always useful in the coin world.

Oh and Geoff, clear something up for me on the numbers, how do you pronounce viginti? (g'in (as in the g with a guh sound), or as in the drink?)

And would 23 be viginti tres?

[Sylvester]

It isn't! If you have never learnt it you can't know its beauty - Caecilius ad foro cum Metella sedebat! Multus sanguis fluit!

something, of something with verb? many something something.

I really haven't got a clue, but give 2 hours with my dictionary i might figure it out.

[Sylvester]

the only think i could ever figure out, (and i'm sure this is wrong), was 'A Domiono factum istud, et est mirable in occulis nostris' - Elizabeth I in 1558 (apparently)

Although i'd doubt she really said that.

[Master Jmd]

It isn't! If you have never learnt it you can't know its beauty - Caecilius ad foro cum Metella sedebat! Multus sanguis fluit!

i do latin, i find it horrrrible...

and nice tripple posting sylvester

[Emperor Oli]

It's pronounced Vi-jint-ee methinks. And it is viginti tres!

My above post says "Caecilius is sitting in the Forum with Metella" and "Much blood flowed" hehe

[william]

Do you do french at school William?

Oui!

[Geoff T]

Oh and Geoff, clear something up for me on the numbers, how do you pronounce viginti? (g'in (as in the g with a guh sound), or as in the drink?)

And would 23 be viginti tres?

Latin, like most languages, is capable of being pronounced in a variety of ways depending on context. When I was at school I was taught that all Latin consonants are hard in classical Latin, which would give vi-ginti with G as in ginnel.

In the middle ages, when Latin became principally an ecclesiastical language, it was subject to all sorts of variation depending on the country in which it was used and became somewhat debased and colloquialised, hence the term "vulgar Latin" which gives us "Vulgate" for the accepted Latin text of the Bible used in the middle ages.

The Germanic countries tended to keep the hard consonants, and still do. Listen to a German choir sing a mass setting, for instance, and you can hear things like "agnus Dei" pronounced like "Agnes Dei" or "qui tollis" as "qvi tollis". Languages in the Romance tradition - e.g. the ones rooted in Latin like Italian and French - soften the consonants. It's the Italianate Latin which became widespread in the 19th century and tends to be used by English speakers and singers today - hence "ar-nyus Dei" or "qwi tollis".

As for your quote from Elizabeth I (surely quoting a biblical source here), it's now thought that in 16th century England Latin was pronounced as it it were English, so that e.g. "Gloria in excelsis Deo" would sound more like "Gloria in eckselsis Dee-o" than the commonly heard "Gloria in ex-chelsis Dayo".

So you see, how you pronounce "viginti" is an open question. It depends who, and where you are and the context in which you're pronouncing it.

Hope this helps!

[Geoff T]

PS - here's a well known (sacred?!) text (which I set in the style of Byrd and passed off as a 16th century motet to some poor music students).

Virgines viginti quatuor descenderunt de Caledonia.

Bello ergo perfecto, sic erunt nullae.

Testes Patri et Filio.

Amen