Could half of FIVE be four?

This is a wordplay riddle involving Roman numerals and letters. If you take the word 'FIVE' and remove the first two letters 'F' and 'I', you get 'VE'. In Roman numerals, V = 5 and E is not a Roman numeral. But wait - let me reconsider. Actually, 'IV' in Roman numerals is 4. If you take FIVE and remove 'F' and 'I', you get VE. But if you remove 'FI' from FIVE, you get VE. Hmm, the riddle must be that half (first half) of F-I-V-E is IV, which is 4 in Roman numerals.