This year's USA National Football League's 49th version of the league championship, the Super Bowl, is advertised everywhere as the XLIX edition. I thought IL was the roman numeral for 49. The XLIX version calls for the use of two 'less thans' to interpret the number (ten less than fifty plus one less than ten) and I thought only one 'less than' idea was allowed in each number (if called for). Wasn't 1999 the MIM year and not the MCMXCIX year?

I know there are some loose ways to writing some of the roman numbers but I didn't think that 49 had any other possibility than IL.

Who do we approach to get this corrected if the XLIX is wrong? Lots of t-shirts are riding on this.

XLIX is correct.

The numeral I may be subtracted only from V and X, it can not be subtracted from L. See http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/rules-governing-roman-numerals.html

Gratias.

...and this is why we don't use roman numerals to do our math

Yes, I often wonder how the Romans set out their sums, let alone anything more complicated. For example, just imagine a simple sum like 1+3+4+8+9 in Roman numerals.

Maybe that's where we get the term:" Mental Arithmetic?

Considering the calculations involved, perhaps that's why Rome wasn't built in a day?

1999 was not MIM, although some people liked the look of it. MCMXCIX is the correct way to show that number.

I wonder why this system is still in use today, it is enduring anyway.

I think maybe it lends some kind of an official air to it. Like the system is timeless, or definitive, or historically set-in-stone. Using the numbers makes whatever come before it seem that much more important historically.

Like the date a BBC programme has been made, I am thinking of that specifically.

The BBC news site actually had an article about it back in MMII - it's here.

I suspect that when the Romans came, saw, conquered and then went home again they left all the clocks set to Rome time but took the clock keys home with them so we're stuck; I'm only grateful they forgot to turn the lights off.

I now see that my thought of using 'less than' twice in a number is possible. The number 44 has no other way of being depicted than XLIV.

And 444 would be CDXLIV.

Classical Roman use only allows the longer form and also requires the use of the subtractive notation for any 4 or 9 digit.

In medieval times, however, IL, IC, XD or XM were occasionally seen as shorthand, much like Church Latin omitted a few of the most complex classical Latin constructions.

The IIII occasionally seen evolved from clock making - it was created as an aesthetic counterweight to make the right hand half of the clock face seem less empty and improve symmetry.

A colleague of my husband (Maynooth) asked him whether next years' Superbowl would be L or XLX.

Where's the darn like button?