herring

[Amy West]

On 2/3/11 12:03 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> Date:    Wed, 2 Feb 2011 12:46:44 -0500
> From:    "Joel S. Berson"<Berson at ATT.NET>
> Subject: Re: herring
>
> At 2/2/2011 03:01 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
>> >I came across the Britannica article on herring from several early
>> >editions (it seems to have been repeated virtually unchanged from 1797
>> >well into the middle of the 19th century).
>> >...
>> >
>> >Under 1., there is a statement "a hundred of herrings is to be a hundred
>> >and twenty". Is this the herring version of a "baker's dozen"? Or is
>> >there some other significance to this?
> I am pretty sure I came across a court case from
> colonial Massachusetts where someone was fined
> for selling a quantity of 100 instead of
> 120.  While I'm not absolutely sure of the
> specific numbers, I am of the notion.  And
> unfortunately I don't remember the
> commodity.  The crime (e.g., theft, fraud) was
> not stated, as is common in the court
> records.  (May I be excused for not having
> considered this case significant at the
> time?  You never know -- I was searching for adultery and ncest.)
>
> Of course this by itself does not explain the
> significance, but "baker's dozen" seems quite
> plausible.

In Old Norse (and perhaps OE as well, though I can't recall) there is
the "long hundred" where "hundred" means 120.

--
---Amy West

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