Hi all,
I have to admit that Allan has touched on one of my hobby-horses. I believe that in the modern era "die" as the singular of dice is obsolete, or at best archaic. I know of no native English speaker that would refer to "a die" in everyday speech. If you were to stop someone in the street and ask them what "a die" is, they would either refer to "dye" for hair/clothes, or to something for moulding metal.
A quick bit of googling just now brought me to grammarly.com/blog/dice-die/ where it states
"If you look up dice in the Oxford Dictionary, you will learn that dice is an acceptable singular and plural form of die. According to this source, dice was once the plural of die, “but in modern standard English dice is both the singular and the plural: ‘throw the dice’ could mean a reference to either one or more than one dice.”
Something I do remember reading in the print version of the Oxford English Dictionary many years back. So my opinion is to applaud the exam setter who had the nerve to jettison an anachronism and say "a dice", like everyone does, but I am sure that others will differ.
Regards
Paul
Dr. Paul Wilson
Senior Lecturer in Statistics
School of Mathematics and Computer Science
Faculty of Science and Engineering
University of Wolverhampton
Wulfruna Street
Wolverhampton
WV1 1LY
Phone: +44 (0)1902 321444
________________________________________
From: A UK-based worldwide e-mail broadcast system mailing list [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Allan Reese [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 20 August 2019 14:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: allstat Digest - 19 Aug : UK school exams
As John Bibby notes, the 2019 paper is embargoed except for teachers for
a year. To continue the SHOCK, HORROR, I looked at an earlier
Maths/Stats paper in which a question stated someone threw "a dice".
Allan
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