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From: grante@reddwarf.rosemount.com (Grant Edwards)
Subject: Re: Arabic numbering system
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Date: Sun, 17 Sep 1995 02:30:07 GMT
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Olaf Seibert (rhialto@mbfys.kun.nl) wrote:

: >I think the point is that if you pronounce numbers lsd first (as in this
: >is the year "five and ninety and nine-hundred and one thousand") then in
: >Arabic the number would be written in the same right-to-left direction as
: >is the text:
: >
: >  1 9 9 5

: Well, in older English one sometimes sees eight and twenty for 28,
: for instance. Languages such as Dutch and German also say two-digit
: numbers in this way.

I'm pretty sure that the MSD first pronunciation is a modern invention
[caused, one might thing, by the adoption of Arabic numerals -- though I've
no idea if that's the case].  Like somebody else pointed out, we still use
the old LSD first method for for 13 through 19.  You still see LSD first
occasionally in modern English, but the only instances I can come up with
are poems/songs -- I presume the old way was used becuase of the need for
another syllable:

  Four and twenty blackbirds,
  baked into a pie.
  ...
  
  [don't know the author]
  
  
  Four and twenty years ago, I was born into this land.
  The son of a woman and a man who lived in strife.
  ...
  
  [Stephen Stills]
  
--
Grant Edwards        | Microsoft isn't the   | Yow!  With YOU, I can be
Rosemount Inc.       | answer. Microsoft     | MYSELF..  We don't NEED Dan
                     | is the question, and  | Rather..
grante@rosemount.com | the answer is no.     | 
