I’m reading a pamphlet here from the City of Arcata (bolding mine):
Why “monies” instead of “money”, “funds”, or even “rebates”?
What does pluralizing “money” do, anyway?
Make a person sound like a pretentious ass?
On a related note, how’s it pronounced? The way it’s written, I always hear it like ‘moe-nees’, which sounds rather retarded.
I guess it would be similar to* fish* and fishes. They are all fish but they are classified as different fishes. So it’s all money, but divided up by different recipients. Therefore they call them monies. Yeah, weird but I guess it’s technically correct.
So that term necessarily implies that the money is going to different recipients (or does it mean came from different sources)?
Either way. In the OP it would be due to different sources.
And, of course, the most important reason for using the term -> we’ve always done it that way. Seriously, cut and paste is your friend. Do not deny the blessings of cut and paste to government report writers.
Always loved that line.
Yes, it does seem that “monies” is sometimes used because “money” is somehow perceived as bald-faced or vulgar.
For the quote, I would just say “6000 in rebates", as "” tends to imply that it’s money we’re talking about.
Yes, it’s all money, but “monies” implies that it’s not all from one source and may be for specific purposes collectively related to the project. In other words, they may have recieved a rebate from the local electric utility for the solar installation and a grant from the state for using a minority-owned contractor.
It seems to be similar to “Peoples”, where “people” = multiple persons, “Peoples” = multiple groups of people
“Monies” is nearly always a bit for panache that merely comes across looking pretentious. However, it has been for a long time an alternate spelling of the plural of money – and it does have a valid meaning – discrete accounts of money, purposefully kept separate. “The monies from the three trusts fund quite separate programs…” – note that “monies” compactly functions as synonymous for “the separate sums of money derived as income from the three different trusts…”
Oh, so mobsters want to make clear that they’ve dumped someone’s body in a diverse marine ecosystems!
I would go with “The three trusts fund quite separate programs”. Once you’re mentioning “trusts” and “fund”, it’s clear we’re talking moolah.
Echew “monies”!
In rental properties, the “monies” are always broken down: so much for the rent, so much for the security, so much for our commission.
And we still get people who bring in one money order or certified check for the entire amount.
Maybe you should tell them to bring a monies order.
Good point. If we were debating, I’d counter that we’re talking the income from the trusts, not the trusts (=principal) themselves. I simply wrote the sentence as I did to give an example of where ‘monies’ might be properly used, to underscore “I mean separate sums of money”; I didn’t seek to produce a masterpiece of jewel-like syntax. See Annie-xmas’s post for a common usage that may be a better example.
“Monies” (or ‘moneys’, the rarer spelling) does not mean ‘mucho moolah’ – it has the function of being one word that means “separate, discrete sums of money, to be kept separate because they are allocated to quite different accounts.”
:smack: Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that. I just meant I would find a way around the “monies” business altogether.
I believe the correct usage of “monies”, as opposed to the vulgar plural “money”, would be more easily distinguished by the layman were proper instructions to be posted at regular intervals. Perhaps a bit of signage is in order?
Weak, I know, but I had to work “signage” in somehow…
I work in a billing department, and when we talk about monies, it’s always about money coming in from different sources as discreet amounts. I think that has more to do with accepted usage, rather than a grammatical rule. The root of the English word “money” is from Old French moneie which in turn descended from Latin moneta.