Those Romans and their counting

[desperance]

I spent much of yesterday anticipating that I would finish the penultimate chapter (please!) on page 599. I was looking forward to the subject line on the consequent post, because I actually had to pause and work out that the Roman numeral for that would be DXCIX (five hundred ten-short-of-a-hundred one-short-of-ten: how could one not love such a system?). Only then I was suddenly struck by an awful realisation, that there was a shortcut version: DIC. Which is no fun at all.

So I just looked it up, and yay. The shortcut is frowned upon!

(To those interested: I am currently on p DXCIX. And no, the chapter is not finished. And there might have to be another one.)