Category Archives: Language

Roll one dice

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Working on a problem today, I needed to know the probability of rolling the same number three times in a row on a 28-sided die. Because I’m interested in the current crop of generative AIs, I thought I’d pose that question:

When rolling a 28-sided die, what is the probability that I’ll roll the same number three times in a row?

Google Gemini’s response:

The probability of rolling any specific number on a 28-sided die one time is 1/28. Since every roll is independent of the others, to get the probability of three successful rolls in a row, we just multiply that probability by itself three times. Therefore, the probability of rolling the same number three times in a row is (1/28) * (1/28) * (1/28) = 1/784.

That answer is partially right, but catastrophically wrong. I’ll address that in a separate post.

Gemini provides a link, at the bottom of the response, that you can click if you want to double-check the response. In this particular case, that link performed a Google search on “Probability of rolling same number three times in a row on 28-sided die”. What I found curious was this message at the top of the results page:

Did you mean: Probability of rolling same number three times in a row on 28-sided dice

I was taught, and never questioned, that “dice” is plural. The singular is “die.” One die, two dice. Right? Isn’t that proper English? Why is Google asking me about rolling one dice? But I thought I’d check that out before ranting about improper language use.

Gemini, when asked “can the word “dice” be singular?”, responded with:

Yes, “dice” can be singular in modern English.

Traditionally, “die” was the singular form and “dice” was the plural. However, over time, “dice” has become acceptable for both singular and plural uses.

Here’s a breakdown:

  • Technically: “Die” is the historical singular form.
  • Modern Usage: “Dice” is widely used for both singular and plural. This is considered grammatically correct by many dictionaries.
  • Nuance: Some people, especially in formal writing, may prefer “die” for the singular form to avoid confusion with the verb “to dice” (cutting food into cubes).

So, while “die” exists, “dice” is perfectly acceptable for singular use in most contexts.

What I learned from checking its references, after wading through some heated debate on the topic, is that people have been using “dice” to refer to a single die for more than 600 years. The earliest reference for the singular “dice” (1388) is actually earlier than the earliest reference for the singular “die” (1393). And although the formal definition in many dictionaries says that “dice” is plural and “die” singular, the use of “dice” as a singular noun continues to increase. “Die” is still more common, but “dice” is increasingly becoming accepted. I don’t know of any style manuals that specifically allow the singular “dice,” but many online dictionaries say that although “dice” can be singular or plural, “die” is the preferred singular.

In other words, language evolves. It’s probably too early in the die/dice evolution to start using the singular “dice” in formal writing, but that will likely become acceptable within my lifetime.

Drive language purists crazy: roll one dice.

Odds ‘n Ends

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Yes, I’ve been a little busy and haven’t taken the time to keep up here.  Perhaps later in the week I can spend some time on it.

Don’t take these signs literally!

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Attached to the wall above the toilet in the aircraft lavatory are two signs. The first reads:

Discarding anything other than toilet tissue may
cause external leaks and create a safety hazard.

The other reads:

Please use the wastebasket for
anything other than toilet tissue.

It’s probably a good thing that people don’t interpret those signs literally.

Permanentize?

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Listening to the news on the way home from work this evening, I heard one of our Senators use the non-word “permanentize,” as in “We need to permanentize that arrangement.”  She was talking about the Federal government taking over airport security.  Rather than “We need to make that arrangement permanent.”  I guess then to make something temporary we’ll temporatize it.  Come on.  “Permanentize?”  That’s worse than the recent use of “office” as a verb, as in “I office in the west wing.”  I’m hardly a language purist, and I understand that the English language should evolve, but let’s use a little restraint, huh, lest we permanentize some serious ugliness.

“All are not” versus “Not all are”

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Another issue of “Jim’s Pet Peeves.”  I think people understand the difference between “all are not” and “not all are,” but use “all are not” to mean both things?  At the Garden Center today I was reading a little blurb about succulents, which said in part “All cacti are succulents, but all succulents are not cacti.”  Huh?  I think they meant “…but not all succulents are cacti.”  And this in an educational brochure.  I regularly see this mistake in print and hear it on radio broadcasts, and I wonder if the journalists (writers and editors) actually understand what they are saying.

The first time I tried to explain this difference to somebody, I chose as my example sentence the obvious falsehood “All lawyers are not crooks.”  Changing “all are not” to “not all are” results in the somewhat less suspect “Not all lawyers are crooks.”  Perhaps that wasn’t such a good example after all.

When people say “all is not lost,” are they really trying to say “not all is lost?”

Average what?

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I sometimes wonder if news reporters think about what they’re saying.  For example, when Ann Taylor of NPR’s All Things Considered gives the stock market report, she will sometimes say “The price of an average share increased by one dollar.”  The problem is that there’s no such thing as an average share.  What she means is that the average price per share increased by one dollar.  This “average syndrome,” as I call it is not limited to stock marked reports.  I often hear about the “average person” who weighs 182.34 pounds.  I’ve yet to meet one of those average people who meets all of the qualities assigned to him.  It’s quite a different thing to say “The average American drinks 2.3 cans of soda per day,” rather than “On average, Americans drink 2.3 cans of soda per day.”

I can usually figure out what’s meant when somebody falls into the average trap.  It’s harder (sometimes impossible) to figure out the meaning of the phrase “two times faster.”  Some people use that term to mean “twice as fast,” which isn’t correct.  100 MPH is twice as fast as 50 MPH.  150 MPH is two times faster.  This gets even more ambiguous when people use percentages.  Some say “50 percent faster” to mean “50 percent less time.”  But in order to cover the same distance in 50 percent less time, you have to travel 100 percent faster (twice as fast).  Both usages of “faster” are correct in certain contexts, but it’s sometimes hard to determine context.  And all too often I hear of a process that takes half the time as another described as being “100 percent faster.”  In the context of elapsed time, “100 percent faster” would mean that it takes no time at all.  Is it any wonder I’m often confused by news reports?

Welcome to my ‘blog’

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My friend Jeff Duntemann notes in his web diary that the word to describe a Web diary is “blog” (from “Weblog”).  So you’re reading my blog.  Jeff’s right, it’s an ugly word.  Ugly or not, it’s common enough to warrant an entry in the Lycos Tech Glossary.

Jeff also mentioned Blogger, a program that lets you post blogs, and Blog*Spot, which will host your blog for free if you don’t have a web site of your own.  I’ve also found an AvantGo client for Blogger that will run on PalmOS and Windows CE.  

A Google search for “blog” returned over 70,000 hits.  It seems that blogging is pretty popular.  Most of what I saw while I was cruising other people’s blogs wasn’t terribly interesting, and much of it was incoherent.  Jeff’s response to that observation was, “The easier it is to publish Web diaries, the less interesting the published diaries will be. It’s completely true that some people have absolutely nothing to say. This won’t keep them from saying it.”  I agree.

Right now I use FrontPage to add an entry every day, but I’m not terribly happy with the solution.  I’ve considered writing my own web diary program, but now I’ll have to give Blogger a try.  If you know of similar programs, please contact me.