Monday, January 26, 2015

How stupid does Super Bowl "XLIX" look?

First of all, I'd be willing to bet XLIX.com is probably a porn sight.  And if "X-licks" isn't the first that comes to mind, ex-lax probably is.  I'd also like to know what percentage of people see "XLIX" and actually think "49" right away.  If it's even 1 percent I'd be shocked.

Not only that, but the logic to how the letters represent 49 is dumb to begin with--50 minus 10, plus 10 minus 1.  Who would ever count that way?  Why didn't those silly Romans just use "IL" instead?

RELATED: NFL takes my advice, decides to call 2016 Super Bowl "50" instead of "L"



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3 comments:

  1. Abacus RevealsJanuary 27, 2015 at 1:36 PM

    I'm not trying to be argumentative here. (I actually wish they'd use years rather than Super Bowl 42, Wrestlemania 12 or the 82nd World Series.)

    But there is a reasonable logic to Roman numerals -- it corresponds to the concept of place value, i.e. ones, tens, hundreds, etc. It works that way on both sides of the decimal point -- though I must admit I've never seen a Roman numeral with a decimal point.

    I only know this shit because I was inundated while attending Boston Latin School, which incidentally opened in MDCXXXV.

    http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0126/Why-does-the-Super-Bowl-use-Roman-numerals

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    Replies
    1. Mark Van DeusenJanuary 27, 2015 at 4:07 PM

      Yeah, I agree, and obviously the Romans knew what they were doing, I just think it's funny how long the numbers can get unnecessarily. Using the year absolutely makes more sense, but I do understand the logic for not doing it that way because they game takes place in a different year then the season did...

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  2. Abacus RevealsJanuary 27, 2015 at 1:36 PM

    I'm not trying to be argumentative here. (I actually wish they'd use years rather than Super Bowl 42, Wrestlemania 12 or the 82nd World Series.)

    But there is a reasonable logic to Roman numerals -- it corresponds to the concept of place value, i.e. ones, tens, hundreds, etc. It works that way on both sides of the decimal point -- though I must admit I've never seen a Roman numeral with a decimal point.

    I only know this shit because I was inundated while attending Boston Latin School, which incidentally opened in MDCXXXV.

    http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0126/Why-does-the-Super-Bowl-use-Roman-numerals

    ReplyDelete