Every day here at the RedFlagDeals.com headquarters we keep an office-wide Skype chat running to share lunch plans, office chatter and cute pictures of our pets. Yesterday afternoon I came across this article in The Star and sent it to the group along with a couple of comments. (Namely, is this guy kidding? Who can't read roman numerals? Is that a thing?) The reaction was varied, although I'm happy to report that the majority of my coworkers have a reasonable understanding of roman numerals and felt, like I did, that this guy was either a moron or just trying to be controversial. And then there was the employee who saw XLIV and said, "isn't that...14? Wait no. 24? Roman numerals suck." (It's 44. L means 50, and X means 10. If you place a smaller number in front of a larger number, it means you should subtract it -- so, 40. And the same thing goes for IV -- it's five minus one. So: 44. This year's Super Bowl is XLVI, which is 46.)
I don't think there's any reason to break with the tradition of referring to the Super Bowl according to roman numerals, despite The Star columnist claiming that "the only American who understands them any more is Dan Brown" and that they're a "good clue" to tell if "a person is dangerously self-involved." Certainly, you're not at any real loss in life if you can't decipher them, but on the other hand, it's a simple system and knowing it might just come in handy at your next pub quiz (or, more importantly, the next time you need to impress a date).
