Newsgroups: sci.lang
From: andre@shappski.demon.co.uk (Andre Shapps)
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!udel!gatech!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!pipex!peernews.demon.co.uk!shappski.demon.co.uk!andre
Subject: Re: Eleven & Twelve
References: <3hj9ca$mfc@igor.rutgers.edu> <D43Jut.9Gw@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>  <Bm06EWg.whl44@delphi.com> <D4BG87.79z@cogsci.ed.ac.uk>   <3igoqh$i14@ns.RezoNet.NET> <3im11f$34c@igor.rutgers.edu>
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Date: Sat, 25 Feb 1995 19:07:16 +0000
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In article: <3im11f$34c@igor.rutgers.edu>  mrrosa@eden.rutgers.edu (Mark 
Rosa) writes:
> 
> In article <3igoqh$i14@ns.RezoNet.NET>
> ray@ultimate-tech.com (Ray Dunn) writes:
> 
> > A simple question, what caused French to name 80-99 using a different 
> > convention  i.e. quatre-vingt?  (or has this been covered ad-nauseam?)
> > ---
> > Disclaimer: All opinions expressed above are personal
> 
> As Georges Ifrah conjectures in his book _From One to Zero_ (which I
> can't say enough good things about), the use of "quatre-vingts" (4x20)
> is a remnant of an older counting limit at 20. If I'm not mistaken,
> both Gaelic and Basque also involve the word for twenty when forming
> other multiples of ten. Twenty seems to be even more "special" than 12
> among world languages, in my opinion.
> 
>                                    -- Mark Rosa
> (mrrosa@eden.rutgers.edu)
> 
> 
Even in (rather antiquated) English we have the word "score" for twenty, 
such that the length of a man's life was known as "three score and ten". 
These days I only here it used colloquially in London - along with 
"monkey", "carpet", "pony" etc. to mean various different multiples of 100. 
Anyone care to complete the list?
-- 
Andre Shapps

