3 ms·
Thank you. I had flirted with the thoughts before, but never really explicitly considered how odd the English words "eleven", "twelve" and then the "teens" are.
by scott_s 13y ago
Thank you. I had flirted with the thoughts before, but never really explicitly considered how odd the English words "eleven", "twelve" and then the "teens" are. Not only is "teen" not quite "ten", we also put it after the ones digit. That is, 19 is "nine-teen", but 91 is "ninety-one".
- archangel_one 13y agoThis is true of Germanic languages more generally, where they have special cases for teens too but also read higher numbers as "five-and-twenty" etc. And then French has their vigesimal thing - 92 is quatre-vingt-douze, ie. "four twentys and twelve". English gets off relatively lightly with teens only...