Discussion Forum (Archived)
Guest
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal"
What is exactly Lincoln meaning by "four score", I know it isn ´t middle english, it ´s probably early American english, and I ´ve heard the expression before!!
A score is 20. Four score is 80. Four score and seven is 87. I'm not sure if that was the standard way of counting then, or if Lincoln was just being grandiose.
Danish counts that way:
60 = tres, shortened from "3 20's"
80 = firs, shortened from "4 20's"
50 = halvtreds, shortened from "half 3 20's"
70 = halvfjerds, shortened from "half 4 20's"
90 = halfems, shortened from "half 5 20's"
telemath said:
A score is 20. Four score is 80. Four score and seven is 87. I'm not sure if that was the standard way of counting then, or if Lincoln was just being grandiose.
Danish counts that way:
60 = tres, shortened from "3 20's"
80 = firs, shortened from "4 20's"50 = halvtreds, shortened from "half 3 20's"
70 = halvfjerds, shortened from "half 4 20's"
90 = halfems, shortened from "half 5 20's"
87 years ago, much obliged!!!
johng423 said:
In French, "eighty" is expressed as "quatre-vingts" (four twenties). This is used through 99: "quatre-vingts-dix-neuf" = four twenties [plus] ten [plus] nine.
Similarly 70 is "soixante-dix", 77 is "soixante-dix-sept", etc., and 90 is "quatre-vingt-dix", 97 "quatre-vingt-dix-sept", etc. It's complicated and long and stupid and it means that I can't easily do arithmetic in French and have to translate to English and back when I do calculations. How can you do arithmetic with numbers that are already themselves sums?
Except that other versions of French use other numbers:
In French-speaking Switzerland, "huitante" is used for 80, and in Belgium and Switerland they use "septante" for 70 and "nonante" for 90.
The vigesimal system was common in medieval French, giving for example the Hôpital des Quinze-Vingts, a hospice designed for 300 blind persons.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
1 Guest(s)