It’s “Die” Not “Dice” Dummy (Or Is It?)

OK, I know that technically the correct singular form of ‘dice’ is ‘die’. Or rather – it used to be…

Because things have changed. Language has a tendency to evolve. Sometimes for the worse (don’t get me started on ‘decimate’ – it’s literally got ‘deci’ in the word!).

And dictionaries now define ‘dice’ as the modern singular and plural form. ‘Die’ is now considered the old-fashioned English singular.

But here’s the thing. The vast majority of people don’t use the word ‘die’ to refer to one dice. Most people call a single die a dice. So it reads much more clearly and doesn’t trip people up when I’m trying to explain complicated lottery stuff.

So even if it wasn’t dictionary acceptable, I’d still be doing it. 🙂

Because I often use dice to explain things like probability, averages and lottery odds. It pushes the brain-aching big numbers out of the way. Which makes understanding easier.

It’s a bit like starting sentences with ‘because’ or ‘and’. Some people don’t think this is grammatically correct (it actually is – look it up 😉 ) or think it’s just bad practice. But this is not literature here, this is a lottery blog. And writing this way makes things much easier to read and understand. Especially on a screen.

Hopefully you’ll be able to forgive my ‘modernisms’ and read beyond them. Particularly if you’re an English teacher. 🙂