10-19

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:03 am

Why is it that 10-19 seem to follow a different formate than other two digit numbers? Most two digit numbers have a place keeper number like twenty, thirty, so you would think that we would say tenny-one, tenny-two etc.

Before you write this off to a quirk of English, I have noticed a similar pattern in Persian Farsi, Spanish and American Sign Language.

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:21 am

That's because lots of languages have old alternate methods of counting which are base twelve. Base ten seems to have been adopted over most of the world, but the pre-existence of base-twelve numbers is preserved in the names of the numbers up to twelve.

There are also old methods of counting of base twenty, which is why you have "three-score years and ten" for instance. But if you think of "dozens" (and in French you have "dizains" (tens) and "douzains" dozens) you should get a feel for it. The "Dozen" equivalent of a hundred is a "gross" (144).

In the seventeenth Century, Isaac Newton submitted a plan to King Charles the Second to have England's standard counting method changed to base twelve, but it was rejected.

And if you listen to old Jake Thackeray recordings there is one which is about a Shepherdess who counts in base five: "yan tan tether mether mick, she counted, yan tan tether mether mick she said."

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:30 am

Well English is hardly unique in this. Most languages seem to have a simple morphemic way of expressing the numbers 1 to 10. After you run out of fingers, expressing higher numbers by various compounding schemes is up for grabs. My impression is that many Indo-European languages have similar ways of expressing all or part of the range from 11 to 19, so it is probably a shared Indo-European trait. Since both English and Farsi are Indo-European, it's not surprising that they're similar in this respect. The patterns are holdovers.

In English, it's really only 11 and 12 that are fully irregular (monomorphemic). As Innocent Bystander says, this seems to reflect a sort of duodecimal (base 12) influence. The rest from 13 to 19 are really no different from higher compound numbers, except that the parts are reversed. If we said "teen four" etc. instead of "four teen", it would seem basically the same as "twenty four", thirty four", etc. The change from "ten" to "teen" and "five" to "fif" is just phonological, and doesn't alter the underlying morphology. Other Germanic languages follow the same pattern. Romance languages fare worse, e.g., Spanish being irregular through 15 (quince) and French through 16 (seize).

French also has a stong flavor of vigesimal (base 20) from 70 to 99, and Danish from 50 to 99. There are traces of this in English ("four score and seven years"). From a quick glance at some online literature, I see that there's speculation that this may have been a European innovation (as opposed to a generalized Indo-European trait) that spread from a pre-Indo-European source such as Basque to Italic, Germanic, Celtic, etc. But vigesimal counting is fairly widespread anyway, including in classical Mayan. I guess the concept "two tens" or 10 fingers + 10 toes is a natural human leap to make.

Actually, at first I thought the topic was a message in CB or police 10-Code, where 10-19 means something like "return to the station". Now I know better. 10-4 good buddy.

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 5:26 am

Innocent Bystander wrote:In the seventeenth Century, Isaac Newton submitted a plan to King Charles the Second to have England's standard counting method changed to base twelve, but it was rejected.

But the Duodecimal Society (now Dozenal Society) carries on!

http://www.polar.sunynassau.edu/~dozenal/

Innocent Bystander wrote:And if you listen to old Jake Thackeray recordings there is one which is about a Shepherdess who counts in base five: "yan tan tether mether mick, she counted, yan tan tether mether mick she said."

Interesting article on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Tan_Tethera

djm · Post by **djm** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:30 am

Ah, but you've left out the most relevent counting system, i.e. base-16, which was based on how much gas you suffer from. It was originally used for counting how much octane we produce, which in turn lent its name to the numbering system used in computer programming, called octal.

Would I lie to you?

djm

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:36 am

djm wrote:Ah, but you've left out the most relevent counting system, i.e. base-16, which was based on how much gas you suffer from. It was originally used for counting how much octane we produce, which in turn lent its name to the numbering system used in computer programming, called octal.

Would I lie to you?

You have just lied to me... octal is base-8.

Base-16 is the system used by witches to count their
spell ingredients. That's why we call it hexadecimal.

In Gaelic, the pattern doesn't repeat until you get past 20.
I think those folks must have gone barefoot more often...

djm · Post by **djm** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 7:47 am

fearfaoin wrote:You have just lied to me... octal is base-8.

Base-16 is the system used by witches to count their
spell ingredients. That's why we call it hexadecimal.

I knew that. Its not easy being lysdexic.

djm

gonzo914 · Post by **gonzo914** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 8:27 am

fearfaoin wrote:... octal is base-8. ...

Which, according to Professor Tom Lehrer, is just like base-10 -- if you are missing two of your fingers.

New Math

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 9:34 am

There are 10 kinds of people: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

djm · Post by **djm** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 9:36 am

I'm kind of on-again, off-again about binary. I can take it or leave it.

djm

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 1:02 pm

Base 8, Base 12, Base 20 ... Bah! All your base are belong to us. Take off every Zig. For great justice!

Anstapa · Post by **Anstapa** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 1:31 pm

Unfortunately I can only count 9.9 or 19.9, depending if it use my toes also.

Anstapa

WhistlingArmadillo · Post by **WhistlingArmadillo** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 5:03 pm

And of course, the prefixes sept-, oct-, nov-, and dec- refer to 7, 8, 9, and 10, which explains the names for the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th months....

I.D.10-t · Post by **I.D.10-t** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 5:11 pm

Well, here is a valiant plug for Base-3.

jbarter · Post by **jbarter** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 3:40 am

Innocent Bystander wrote:And if you listen to old Jake Thackeray recordings there is one which is about a Shepherdess who counts in base five: "yan tan tether mether mick, she counted, yan tan tether mether mick she said."

Jake only used the first five of that system because it fitted the song. It's actually 20 based. When you get to bumfits (20) you cut a notch in your tally stick and start again. I know at least one farmer here in Lincolnshire who still uses it. He says the sound of the counting is much more pleasing than ordinary numbers.