Actually, it’s my fault. I traumatized by the idea that people might be tossing around Dice. I was also somewhat confused as to why there was more than one of me, as well as being a bit concerned that the kiddies might hurt themselves. I’m not light, you know.
In the sixth grade, one of my teachers was showing us all about calculating odds using a deck of playing cards. As he was setting up, he told us about a former student of his who was so good at it that he was now banned from the casinoes. I guess Mr. Dann wasn’t that concerned about exposing us to gambling.
Nah. PC bullshit is anyone’s game.
You’re not.
Everybody knows that opposite faces are supposed to add up to seven, or at least they should know that.
I peredict at least three posters will now mention they had no idea dice worked like that, and will, in fact, go inspect all their dice just to be sure. 
And I remember actually calculating real odds for craps in my math classes in junior high, and friends and I always played cards and dice during study hall. Not for money, but still, I know a lot of schools now where anything of that nature is banned.
I actually use eight-sided dice rather than number octahedrons; I also have a number monohedron for random numbers 1-100. It’s not got 100 sides, so it’s not a hectahedron; it’s also not a die, because that would be really hard to read (“is that 56 or 57 pips?”).
I remember a (possibly apocryphal) story from my days at BYU (owned & operated by the Mormon church) in the 70’s. The Statistics Dept. sent through a purchase order for several sets of dice to be used for classroom instruction. The PO was rejected by the higher-ups until they changed it to request “cubical random number generators,” at which point it was approved.
If they’re straight dice, though, they’re not random number generators. The whole point is that some combinations and totals have a higher probability of coming up than others. I might buy the terminology for a die.
Yep, was going to say, “dice” and “number cubes” are two different (though similar) entities.
However, to put it to the test, let’s look for a new, PC-written cookbook. If it tells you to “number cube the tomatoes”, you might be on to something.
Just change the pronunciation to “DEE-che” and be done with it.
It’s not PC bullshit, it’s educational publishing company bullshit.
If the lesson plan calls for dice, the teacher can buy them for 99 cents at a local store. If they are called “number cubes”, the school has to buy them for $5.
Notes on the results are kept by using cylindrical graphite sticks on flexible sheets of recycled cellulose pulp.
Somehow, growing up in a super-fundie family, I can’t recall any problems with dies or dice naming when used with kids’ games.
But I do remember that we were not allowed to have standard playing cards in the house, or use them anywhere else, because of their association with gambling, which as we all know, is the Devil’s Handiwork, The Surest Road To Hell, the source of all teen pregnancies, and the inspiration for rock music.
And it didn’t matter that card games could be played with standard cards in a non-gambling manner; the temptation would always be there, so they were banned. Conversely, it didn’t matter that Flinch cards (which contain a single number from 1 to 15 on each, nothing more) COULD be used for gambling (can’t anything?); they were just fine for the kids.
Now, now, individually, they generate random numbers. What we do with the results isn’t their fault.
I have to agree with Joe on this one. My SO teaches elementary school and they can’t use dice (shooting craps, you know) so she uses six sided random number generators :smack: Neither of us understands it, but the school seems to like it.
We called them dice when I was in school, too, and I didn’t turn out too badly. We also played hopscotch, which is now “square jumps”, and drank fruit punch, which is now “flavored drink which does not imply any violence towards homosexuals”. Okay, I’m kidding. But when math is over and it’s time for art, remember that pipe cleaners are now called “chenille stems” to distinguish them from drug paraphernelia.
…no, that last one’s not a joke.
Tumblin’ Number Cubes would probably be my least favorite Stones song.
Or that song by Finley Quaye.
Nothing can compare
To when you roll the random number generators and you swear that your love’s for me…
This is, seriously, no exaggeration, the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
If I had read this 1/2 a second later, there’d be coffee on my monitor. Fortunately, I paused just long enough before sipping that my monitor was spared.
I definitely plan to call them DEE-che from now on though.
These are dice.
These are number cubes.
I am seriously having a hard time getting worked up about this. You can call them one or the other, and it’s not a crime. It’s not PC anything. Both names are perfectly fine.
Happy Holidays. 
Look, I think this is a perfectly reasonable policy. If the ban on dice can stop one kid from falling into D&D addiction then it’s all worth it.