As in the Roman coin denomination. Is it pronounced 'as' or 'ass'? This has often puzzled me, and I'm not the only one...
So you best be careful when you tell a lady friend over there that she has a nice roman coin in a certain denomination! Interesting..
Let me post this before the thread descends entirely into obscenities http://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=Latin Pronunciation
Forvm says Americans often say az which may or may not be what I was taught ('oz' as in Wizard of). Let me arn against getting too pedantic about pronunciations since there are different rules in every country that studies these things. We are lucky when two languages use the same spellings.
'That's one sweet uncirculated 'as' you have there darling.' Yep.... that line sounds like the beginning of an unforgettable evening....
Oh you anglophones can be so vulgar. In German that "as" it is pronounced like the English word "us". Pretty much the same in Italian, except they add a second syllable with a schwa sound at the end. Christian
I began a site about ancient Roman coins and in the header I had something describing sestertii in terms of value in asses... then I started worrying that some ISPs or Google or whoever would flag it as a porn site so I changed the spelling to ases. But because that's not even correct I just removed the line altogether! Even people who collect asses and denarii and everything pretty hardcore, can you EVER see the word 'asses' and not think of its modern English meaning, at least for a split second? If so, maybe that's a built-in sign that you are spending too much time on the hobby and need a break for a couple days
As far as we Britons are concerned an 'ass' is a donkey. We pronounce the slang term for a person's posterior more like the way your Germans do.....
