herring

[Seán Fitzpatrick]

Did the Babylonians use a 12-symbol  notation system?
Did the mediaeval users of the tolfraedic system use decimal notation
(0...9, 10, 11, 12) or a "tolf-symbol" system?

Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?
I blame Global Warming.
http://www.logomachon.blogspot.com/



-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Quinion [mailto:wordseditor at WORLDWIDEWORDS.ORG]
Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2011 2:24 PM
Subject: Re: herring

Joel S Berson wrote:

> 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.

This number was once standard for selling items by number, often called a
"long hundred". It was so widely used at one time in England that a
proverb was created to remind people that: "Five score's a hundred of men,
money and pins; six score's a hundred of all other things."

I came across it recently when investigating the word "tolfraedic":

  http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-tol2.htm

--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
Web: http://www.worldwidewords.org

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