Psammakosioi

Grant, you remember our conversation about indefinite hyperbolic numerals?

Yeah, umpteen, zillion, 5011.

It turns out that there was a similar term in ancient Greek.

It was samakosioi, which translates literally as sand hundred.

It was coined by Aristophanes and used by several writers in ancient Greek.

And I really like that, sand hundred.

You know, it’s just a vague number that is analogous to the number of grains of sand on the beach.

Oh, I like that too, sand hundred, because who’s going to count?

I’ll just take your word for it.

That’s how much sand is there.

Exactly.

I told you, sand hundred times to do that thing.

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