four and twenty

[Paul Frank]

I'm curious. When did English speakers quit saying things like four and
twenty in normal conversation? Did they ever? The reason I'm asking is
that this morning I blogged the following:

The French say soixante-dix-neuf (sixty-ten-nine) when they want to
express the number 79. Germans say neunundsechzig (nine-and-sixty). In
an interview with Der Spiegel, a German mathematician proposes that the
way numbers are spoken in German be changed to make mental arithmetic
easier. He wants Germans to say zwanzigeins (twenty-one) instead of
einundzwanzig (one-and-twenty). Come to think of it, backward numbers
used to be common in English too. Children still sing the old nursery
rhyme:

Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened the birds began to sing,
Oh wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the king?

Paul
________________________
Paul Frank
Chinese-English translator
paulfrank at post.harvard.edu
http://languagejottings.blogspot.com