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tal ,
@tal@lemmy.today avatar

I don't think that that was Lincoln's invention. I think that he was using some archaic European notation that made its way into English.

A lot of languages have some pretty odd ways of speaking numbers.

kagis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigesimal

In several European languages like French and Danish, 20 is used as a base, at least with respect to the linguistic structure of the names of certain numbers (though a thoroughgoing consistent vigesimal system, based on the powers 20, 400, 8000 etc., is not generally used).

"Eighty-seven" in English is "quatre-vingt sept" in French; "four twenties seven", which is basically what he's saying.

Sing a Song of Sixpence has:

Four and twenty blackbirds

Baked in a pie.

palordrolap ,

The second one is arguably not vigesimal but instead just an echo of the Germanic way of saying numbers that English has all but lost. You'd be surprised how long things will lurk around the fringes of a language despite not being the most popular way of saying things.

The fact it still makes sense probably helps too.

VindictiveJudge ,
@VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world avatar

Could also just be trying to get the right number of syllables for the line. "Four and twenty" is one beat longer than "twenty four."

palordrolap ,

Maybe I should have left in the aside I had about artistic license.

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