Culture: Scale
Bigger than S   (+4, -4)  [vote for, against]
Replace the S used to designate "small" clothing sizes with an appropriate Roman numeral to make it fit the M, L, XL series better.

XL (extralarge) = 40
& L (large) = 50
& M (medium) = 1000
Why use S to mean 'small'?

Sorry, it's lame.
-- reensure, Mar 17 2002

Roman Numeral Converter http://www.novaroma...romana/numbers.html
Handy, dandy, and all that. [jester, Mar 19 2002]

Interesting...according to this system, the clothing size is inversely proportional to the number. My Roman numeral familiarity is a bit rusty, I'm not sure there is a number bigger than M (excepting MM, etc.) Also brings up issues for former XS, as well as XM.
-- nick_n_uit, Mar 17 2002


Were Togas "One Size Fits All"?
-- thumbwax, Mar 17 2002


cmall
-- mihali, Mar 17 2002


Following this admittedly short numeric trend, the value of the "S" could be 38750.

Reasoning: 50 is 125% of the preceding number (40), and 1000 is 2000% of the preceding number (50), an increase of 1875% between the two deltas. Thererefore, assuming the rate of increase of the delta values is constant, the next increase would be by 3875% of 1000, or 38750.

Therefore, "small" clothing should be labeled "MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMDCCL" instead.
-- jester, Mar 19 2002


I'm not quite sure what to think of your reasoning [brettjs], and I think your 38,750 is a bit high. Just plot what is given and derive a polynomial, assuming the change from size to size is one step. Setting xl=1, l=2, m=3, so s=4, plug 4 back into the poly equation you derived and your result should be around 2,890 (MMDCCCXC I think). Based on the poly eq of 470x^2 -1400x + 970. Better results from higher order polys, but I'll leave that to you.

If I don't stop now I'll reveal the link between Roman numerals, Fibonacci numbers, fractals, Phi, the Egyption pyramids and world peace...
-- dag, Mar 19 2002



random, halfbakery