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Ask a silly question, get lots of other questions
Last Friday my coworkers and I were talking about stupid trivia and that sort of thing. I mentioned how much I love random facts, and one of my coworkers said. "Ok, well let's see if you know this. I've been wondering for awhile. Why do we use IV and IX instead of IIII and VIIII? Is there, like, a rule that says that you can only have three Is in a row or something?"
Well, I didn't know the answer to that. But I thought, surely google knows. I may not be as good at google fu as my mom, but I'm no slouch. But instead of answers I only came up with more questions. I even went to metafilter to ask, but that didn't go very well. In fact, I think if it hadn't fallen off the front page (and therefore everyone's radar) I could have ended up on OTF wank as people argued about whether Hindu-Arabic numbers are superior to Roman numerals, or whether they're all just symbolic representations of concepts and none are easier to use than another.
From what Wiki tells me, the Roman numeral system started off basically as tally marks, and every fifth mark was a some kind of double mark. So four WAS IIII and eight used to be IIIIVIII. But then they shortened it to VIII because the V implied that the first four Is came before.
So why the switch? One of the theories on Wiki is that IV was the same as the symbol for Jupiter, so no one wanted to use that. But IV and IX didn't really come into use until the 14th century. A bit late for Jupiter to be a concern. Also, clocks still sometimes use IIII.
And why bother modifying it at all? Also according to Wiki, Europe was starting to use 1,2,3,4, brought from India via Arab traders in the 13th century. So why change the Roman numerals if people are starting to switch to Arabic numbers for everything? Especially when you throw in the fact that Roman numerals have no zero. No concept of zero. So to move from having no zero, to a subtractive notation seems extreme.
Most of the people on Ask Metafilter just said "IV is fewer strokes than IIII so it's easier." Frankly I don't buy that in a heartbeat. One stroke is not that big of a difference when you lose clarity, and there was plenty of flourishes in even the most bare-bones handwritten script. Furthermore! Apparently before J was invented, they used to add a flourish to the last roman numeral. So three would be written IIJ, and that would keep people from adding extra I at the end to make a four.
So far the only theory that seems plausible to me is![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bardofawen's. He thinks that it might be due to the rise of Gothic calligraphy, which has a lot of short straight lines that can make reading difficult. There's a theory that some spelling shifts are due to people trying to avoid long strings of minims. And IV and IX would certainly do that.
It's all very much like this, played out in real life.
Well, I didn't know the answer to that. But I thought, surely google knows. I may not be as good at google fu as my mom, but I'm no slouch. But instead of answers I only came up with more questions. I even went to metafilter to ask, but that didn't go very well. In fact, I think if it hadn't fallen off the front page (and therefore everyone's radar) I could have ended up on OTF wank as people argued about whether Hindu-Arabic numbers are superior to Roman numerals, or whether they're all just symbolic representations of concepts and none are easier to use than another.
From what Wiki tells me, the Roman numeral system started off basically as tally marks, and every fifth mark was a some kind of double mark. So four WAS IIII and eight used to be IIIIVIII. But then they shortened it to VIII because the V implied that the first four Is came before.
So why the switch? One of the theories on Wiki is that IV was the same as the symbol for Jupiter, so no one wanted to use that. But IV and IX didn't really come into use until the 14th century. A bit late for Jupiter to be a concern. Also, clocks still sometimes use IIII.
And why bother modifying it at all? Also according to Wiki, Europe was starting to use 1,2,3,4, brought from India via Arab traders in the 13th century. So why change the Roman numerals if people are starting to switch to Arabic numbers for everything? Especially when you throw in the fact that Roman numerals have no zero. No concept of zero. So to move from having no zero, to a subtractive notation seems extreme.
Most of the people on Ask Metafilter just said "IV is fewer strokes than IIII so it's easier." Frankly I don't buy that in a heartbeat. One stroke is not that big of a difference when you lose clarity, and there was plenty of flourishes in even the most bare-bones handwritten script. Furthermore! Apparently before J was invented, they used to add a flourish to the last roman numeral. So three would be written IIJ, and that would keep people from adding extra I at the end to make a four.
So far the only theory that seems plausible to me is
bardofawen's. He thinks that it might be due to the rise of Gothic calligraphy, which has a lot of short straight lines that can make reading difficult. There's a theory that some spelling shifts are due to people trying to avoid long strings of minims. And IV and IX would certainly do that. It's all very much like this, played out in real life.
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