As if memorizing multiplication tables and calculating the tip on a split bill weren’t hard enough, the words for numbers and amounts themselves haven’t always stayed the same. At a market in the Middle Ages, a clerk might have informed you that your total was a “long hundred,” or “twelfty,” a long-lost number meaning 120. This figure comes from the Old English term “hundtwelftig,” meaning “20 past 100.” “Twelfty” meant “six score” (120), and the “Christian hundred” was “five score” (100). To add to the confusion, as the word “hundred” transitioned (between 1200 and 1650 CE), it could mean either 100 or 120.
Lost in Translation
A number can mean different things to speakers across languages (and time), according to The Allusionist’s podcast episode “Zillions,” which dives into the etymology of number-related words. Modern Western math is built using the base-10 decimal system, while Old English used the base-12 (duodecimal system). Basically, different number systems led to these different ways of counting to 100.
According to historian Julian Goodare, in his academic paper, “The long hundred in medieval and early modern Scotland,” “twelfty” originated with the Germanic practice of counting by tens to 120. The amount was also called “six score,” and sometimes “10 dozen.” But the number of “twelfty” (or “twelvety”) didn’t apply in all instances — for example, Goodare notes that it wasn’t used for selling material such as wool, which was measured by a “short” hundred (100) not a “long” hundred (120) until the early 16th century. This terminology extended to 1,200, then called the “long thousand.”
Fans of Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring get a glimpse of this outdated and alternate counting system as Bilbo is about to reach the age “eleventy-one,” meaning 111. While it may seem like a bit of fanciful phrasing created for the hobbits, Tolkien was a respected linguist who no doubt was giving a nod to ancient counting systems. CNET publicized a celebration of what would have been Tolkien’s 126th birthday (June 3, 2018) with the headline “Raise a glass to JRR Tolkien on his twelfty-sixth birthday.”
A Modern Number for … Who Knows?
While “twelfty” used to mean a concrete number, the word is now mostly used for a sort of nonsense number. In a clip from a 2000 BBC League of Gentlemen episode, a shopkeeper and clerk are attempting to inventory their stock. As the clerk estimates the supplies, she gives up and rounds to “twelfty.” This aligns with Urban Dictionary’s explanation of the slang usage to make fun of not knowing actual numerical data. So, if a clerk is just not sure how much to charge, it’s possible they might exclaim “twelfty!” — a nod to an ancient amount, and a current shrug, meaning “any number.”
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