"The die were cast."
The idiom "the die is cast" is well known. The simple past tense version of this in the indicative mood should be, "the die was cast." In the novel, The Godless, by Ben Peek, I came across the sentence, "He knew there was something wrong with this, a gut-level reaction, but he knew that the die were cast now." Unless I am missing something, this sentence is in the indicative mood.
I then did an online search and found several books that used "the die were cast" in the indicative mood, so this doesn't appear to be a typo. Examples included Colombia and the United States: Hegemony and Interdependence, by Stephen J. Randall; Perspectives on the Nuremberg Trial by Guénaël Mettraux; A Stubble-Jumper in Striped Pants: Memoirs of a Prairie Diplomat, by Earl G. Drake; Writing History in Renaissance Italy, by Gary Ianziti; etc. I understand "the die were cast" is correct if it’s being used in the subjunctive mood in a clause like, "if the die were cast," or, “as though the die were cast,” but that is not the case in any of the cited examples.
My question: Is the use of "the die were cast" in the indicative mood an idiom, or a regionalism? If it is, does anyone know its etymology in the specific form of "the die were cast" when being used in the indicative mood (I am interested in knowing how a singular noun came to be the subject of a plural verb)?
Die is often, in my experience, assumed to be the plural form of dice (e.g. the OP example, the die were cast. Presumably this usage occurs by association with other anglicised latin-root words (octopus/octopi, alumnus/alumni ...)
In fact, die is the singular form of dice although (confusingly) the form dice (used as both pl. and sing.) is of much more frequent occurrence in gaming and related senses than the singular die. OED link, paywalled
The form “the die is cast” is from the Latin iacta alea est, a grammatically incorrect translation by Suetonius, 121 CE, of the Ancient Greek phrase of Menander "Ἀνερρίφθω κύβος (Anerrhíphthō kúbos)", which Caesar quoted in Greek (not Latin). The Greek translates rather as “let the die be cast!”, or “Let the game be ventured!” (Wiktionary)
It would appear as though the Die referred to, was the singular form of a pair of Dice. In other words one the die had been thrown (cast), the result could not be changed, as in a gamble.
The first usage instance of this saying in English dates back to 1634:
The die has been cast:
An irrevocable choice has been made.
Origin:
This expression has nothing to do with the modern-day process of die-casting of metal - the die here is the singular of dice. Julius Caesar is supposed to have spoken this phrase when crossing the Rubicon. Such stories are difficult to verify at this long remove and, of course, Caesar wouldn't have uttered the expression in English.
The earliest English version of the phrase doesn't refer back to Roman history, so we have to take the above story with a pinch of salt.
The earliest citation of the phrase that I can find is in Sir Thomas Herbert, A relation of some yeares travaile begunne anno 1626, into Afrique and the greater Asia, 1634:
- "Aiijb, Is the die cast, must At this one throw all thou hast gaind be lost?"
(The Phrase Finder)
Assuming the grammar is correct in the phrase "the die were cast," then the issue is not with the origin of the idiom in Greek, Latin or English, nor with the pluralism of the singular die, nor with the singularism of the plural dice, but rather instead rests with understanding the unfamiliar feeling of the tense placement of the word were in the idiom.
Past Subjuntive
Were is correctly used not only as the plural past ("they were") and second person singular past ("you were"), of BE, but in the case of the idiom in question (and though highlighted and discarded by OP for some cases, it must be so if correct) it is also used for the subjunctive past. If the grammar is correct, then the only option is that the idiom "the die were cast" is using were as subjunctive past.
The past subjunctive has the same form as the past simple tense except in the case of the verb BE. Though traditionally, the past subjunctive form of BE is were for all persons, including the first person singular and third person singular, the English subjunctive is used to form sentences that do not describe known objective facts.
The tense that is thus indicative is that even though "the die is cast," if unaware of the result of a cast die, the utilization of the subjunctive past of BE conjugates as "the die were cast." Simply, were is used to denote subjunctive past mood rather than read incorrectly as a pluralizing of "die."
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive