[comp.text] 1990 in Roman numerals *summary*

adrian@mti.mti.com (Adrian McCarthy) (12/15/89)

Here is a summary of responses from my question of how to represent 1990 in
Roman numerals:

  1.  The Romans themselves didn't use the "subtraction trick" (i.e., 4 was
      IIII not IV).  -- Raymond Chen, Mike Albaugh's Latin teacher/basketball
      coach, and Don Hosek.

  2.  Although nobody could provide a solid reference (such as a style
      manual), the general consensus is that you should only subtract if
      the smaller unit is an order of magnitude smaller than the larger unit
      (i.e., 9 = IX, and 99 = XCIX not IC).
      -- Raymond Chen, Ken Yap, John Shipman, Gerald Edgar, Mike Albaugh

Thus 1990 is MCMXC, and 1999 will be MCMXCIX, and TeX was right (of course :-).

Aid.  (Standard disclaimers).

ken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap) (12/15/89)

A fascinating fact related to me by an antique clock dealer
acquaintance of mine is that on old clock faces, IIII is used
instead of IV for reasons of visual balance.

Followups to oh I don't know, rec.clocks? :-)