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The simplest thing English speakers could do is get rid of the spoken words for 10 - 19 entirely. But what would you replace them with? Tenty-one, tenty-two,
by pcote 11y ago
The simplest thing English speakers could do is get rid of the spoken words for 10 - 19 entirely. But what would you replace them with?
Tenty-one, tenty-two, ect? No. It sounds two much like twenty-one, twenty-two, and so on.
Replacing the tens with "onty" words makes sense because "on" is closer "one". There's no translation step needed in thinking "Onty-eight minus Onty-two" and coming out with six.
It would be a simple solution to the tens problem but hard with respect to getting people to adopt it.
- panglott 11y agoIt also solves only half the "problem", since each decade still has its own name.
- vorg 11y agoMost decades have the same name. The only ones different are "twen" for "two", "thir" for "three", and "fif" for "five", which all sound very similar anyway so there's not really a problem.
- Todd 11y agoIf we follow existing practice of thir-teen, four-teen, etc. why don't we just use teen as the base? Teeny-one, teeny-two, teeny-three...