Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoins, unlike actual coins, are not really in discrete counting units.  So should we drop the 's'?  Usage would be:

"We use coin (http://www.weusecoins.com)."
"How much bitcoin have you got?"
"I'm low on bitcoin."
"How much is that?  50 bitcoin."  "No, not your corporation, the apples you're selling!  Oh, 25 satoshi."


This could also allow for a nice segmentation of "bitcoin" for btc, "Bitcoin" for the official client, and "BitCoin" for the technology.  Feedback?

Is this like dropping the from "The Facebook"?  ;D

I like simple: "Coin"

Exactly.  It's cleaner.

"Bit" sounds like the french work for dick (bite).

I just suggested to drop the bit from the name in the French forum (at least in French), but I didn't get any answer.

BTW, in French, Facebook sounds like "spank goat" (fesse bouc) :D.

Exactly.  It's cleaner.
[/quote]
Too clean, if you haven't read 1864 you need to(of course I could list 50* other books you need to read for one reason or another)**.  Besides I like bitcoins.
 
I'm not saying this is a horrible idea I just prefer bitcoins.

*This is NOT an exaggeration
**Hence my name BookLover 

Dropping the 's' makes about as much sense to me as saying "That cost me 40 dollar".

"40-dollar shoes" on the other hand would be correct usage, and as such I'd say "40-bitcoin widgets" for widgets that cost 40 bitcoins.

Oops typo 1964

Also I like BitCoin for the technology and haven't come across a good name for the official client.


I'm in complete agreement.

Yes, but dollars are a natural unit because that's how physical bills are denominated, so using the plural to denote multiple of these countable units makes sense.  Compare with the situation when the granularity is much smaller:

"I'll buy it for 50 grand"

Why don't we say "50 grands"?  It's at least partially because it's just as easy to have 50.123 grands as to have 50, making it a much less discrete unit that we don't think of in "chunks".  Bitcoins have more granularity than this--they're practically like sand or water.  In most languages, things with that much granularity are no longer referred to in plurals since these tend to denote discrete counting units.  Thus, herd animals are:

"500 head" (cattle)
"300 sheep"
"6000 wildebeest"
"200 gazelle"
"150 deer"
etc.

whereas animals like canines that form at most small packs are just "dogs" or "wolves".  Whenever an item tends to cross the point of being easily able to count the number of discrete units, we drop the 's'.  50 bitcoins implies psychologically that there are actually 50 discrete things which are somehow separate from each other and which I could count by going "one, two, three..." whereas 50 bitcoin tells me the number has no such connotation and works more like "50 percent" with no chunks being added up.

Well, in the end it's just like the millicoin/nanocoin/picocoin debate... people will just call them whatever they think has the best chance of being understood by whoever they're communicating to.

p.s. Surely "300 sheep" is a bad argument as 'sheep' is the plural of 'sheep'... There has never been such as word as 'sheeps' but there are coins and dollars.

lol, the point is to ask why "sheep" is the plural for "sheep"--and why the plural/singular distinction is omitted in almost all herd animals.  It's an insight in the psychology of plural and singular words.

Heh, yeah you're right, good question.

And I realised too there are currencies that don't use the s, like:

1000 Japanese yen
1000 Korean won

Don't forget the dram, the manat, the taka, the pula, the kuna, the nakfa, the birr, the lari, the tenge, the kip.......

How could I forget them? I've never heard of them :)

NO winning by now...

Because Bitcoin is the "market", and Bitcoins are the... coins  ;)

Also never heard of (most of) them!

However... the euro is supposed to use singular forms, e.g. 5 euro, 50 cent. That's the theory (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Linguistic_issues_concerning_the_euro), anyway. In practice I believe English speakers tend to pluralise (e.g. 5 euros, 50 cents). That said, I live outside the Eurozone so my only practical experience is talking to Irish people, mostly, and a few English speakers from mainland Europe.