Felicia Davin
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number words

A collection of 2 posts
number words

Counting and other cultural collisions

TWELFTY, n., adj. This newsletter has covered the weirdness of counting in French before, but did you know that counting in English also used to be weird as hell? My husband brought this to my attention recently. He discovered this word—twelfty—after buying some nails and wondering why the
03 Nov 2019 4 min read
Nineteen ninety-six
number words

Nineteen ninety-six

NONANTE, n. This is a variation on the (France) French way to say “ninety,” instead of quatre-vingt-dix (for those who have not studied French, that’s literally four-twenty-ten). It comes directly from Latin nonaginta. Nice and logical. It’s not even phonologically exciting: we fully expect that word-final a to
04 Aug 2019 8 min read
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