O U R A FUN E 1

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

One of our Australian listeners is Rob McCahill, and he lives in Cairns, Queensland, and shared with us a little poem that he learned from his grandfather.

Now, the first time I read it, I completely misunderstood it.

It’s a mixture of numerals and letters, and I’m going to try this.

I don’t know how it’s going to work in audio, but I’m going to try it.

I read it as 11 was one racehorse, 22 was 12, 1,111 race, 22,112, which makes no sense, right?

No, but I think I know where it’s going.

You think you know?

Yeah.

You think there might have been two racehorses, one named 11 and another named 22?

Right.

Yeah. If you read it that way, it’s 11 was one racehorse, 22 was one two, 11 won one race, 22 one one two.

That’s very clever.

Yeah, it’s really cute when you see it on the page. And I’ve been told that this poem appears in something called the Ha Ha Bonk book, which was published in 1982 by Janet and Alan Alberg.

A punk book. That’s a great name, too.

It reminds me of something that you learn when you first start statistics, that sometimes numbers count and sometimes they can be counted.

Sometimes numbers count and sometimes they can be counted.

Right. So sometimes they are a thing that you count.

And that is a big deal in statistics.

No kidding.

Right? Put your mind around that for a second.

I’m still trying to put my mind around 11 and 22.

Right. So sometimes a number is a name for a thing.

Sometimes the number counts the thing.

Oh, okay. All right.

There we go.

I need to take a statistics course, clearly.

Your calls, thoughts, and questions about language, toll-free, 24 hours a day in the United States and Canada, 877-929-9673.

You can also email us, words@waywordradio.org, and talk to us on Twitter @wayword.