How Did We Go From Four and Twenty to Twenty-Four?
Listen to Slate’s show about the history and evolution of writing out numbers in the English language.
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Listen to Lexicon Valley Episode No. 46: Number Theory
Four and twenty. That's how many blackbirds, you may remember, were baked in that unappetizing pie of “Sing a Song of Sixpence” fame. But did people really write out—and speak—numerals in that way? Bob Garfield and Mike Vuolo talk about the transition in English—over the course of 700 years!—from four and twenty to twenty-four.
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