Here’s a pop quiz for grammar brainiacs:

Spell the number ’40’:

a. fourty

b. forty

c. foughty

d. forety

If you answered (b), give yourself a pat on the back. If you answered (a), (c) or (d) smack yourself upside the head.

We have four, fourth and fourteen. Understandable. But forty? Where did the ‘u’ go? Why is forty not spelt fourty?

What is wrong with the spelling of numbers today?

Mathematics is founded on rules.  Spelling, not so much. It’s one thing to use numbers, another thing to spell them.

These days, rules of grammar are better defined than they were centuries ago, but they are still confusing and often misunderstood. This is made worse by words that appear to be incorrect, even when spelt correctly, such as ‘forty’.

We can all count to ten and spell the numbers along the way. Well, most of us anyway. But why does the spelling and in some cases, the entire word, change when we get into variations. I can understand thirteen, deriving from third and fifteen deriving from fifth, but what’s with eleven and twelve?

Why don’t we have tenty-one, tenty-two, or eleventy-one, eleventy-two for the teens. Why ‘-teen’, when we have twenty, twenty-one and thirty, thirty-one etc?

Sadly, it is because English is a mongrel language. It is a combination of many other modern and ancient languages, including Old English, Old Norse, Latin, German, French, Arabic, Greek and so on.

Here’s a little history behind some of the weird variations in the spelling of numbers.

Eleven

Derived from the Old English word endleofan, which literally means ‘one left’, as in ‘over ten’ there is one left.

Twelve

We can see an obvious relationship to the word ‘two’, however, what’s with the ‘elve’.

The Middle English word ‘twelve‘ is derived from the Old English ‘twelfe‘, literally meaning (ten and) ‘two leave’.

The -teens

The teens are a little easier to understand, although some parents of adolescents might disagree.

The suffix ‘-teen’ is quite obviously a derivative of the word ‘ten’. In Middle and Old English the suffix was ‘-tēne’, which was a combining form of the word ten. In this case, combining variations of three, four, five to form thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and so on.

Forty

We can see the word that forty is derived from, but why is it spelt ‘forty’ and not ‘fourty’?

Some words are influenced by geopolitical factors, such as favour/favor in which British English includes a ‘u’ and American English eliminates the ‘u’. However, it doesn’t matter what side of the Atlantic you’re on: forty is spelt ‘forty’, not ‘fourty’.

Forty is derived from the Old English word ‘fēowertig‘. The suffix ‘-tig‘ literally means ‘group of ten’.

Now for the big reveal as to why ‘forty’ is not spelt ‘fourty’.

Drumroll …………

Answer: Because.

That’s it really. In a nut-shell, the reason forty is not spelt ‘fourty’ is because.

There is no grammatical reason for forty to not contain a ‘u’. Centuries ago, ‘fourty’ was common, however convenience, laziness and just a general lack of consistency, resulted in the dropping of the ‘u’ and ‘forty’ becoming the accepted spelling. One of English’s many quirks is that there is no consistency in the spelling of words derived from the same root. Perhaps in centuries to come, ‘fourth’ will become ‘forth’ or ‘four’ will become ‘for’, or maybe ‘forty’ will return to its roots and be spelt ‘fourty’.

Fifty

If this was a new word it would probably be spelt fivety or fivty. However, it is derived from the Old English word ‘fiftig‘. While the suffix ‘-tig’ (remember ‘group of ten’) evolved to ‘-ty’, the spelling of the morpheme ‘fif’ remained unchanged but retained the original meaning, ‘five’.

Hopefully, these explanations have provided a small amount of etymological enlightenment to your mathematical ponderings.

If you want consistency and common sense, become a mathematician.

If you thrive on inconsistency, anarchy and answers that end in ‘because’, major in English.

Transatlantic Disclaimer

Throughout this article, I’ve used the word ‘spelt’ rather than ‘spelled’. Some Grammar Nazis might correctly point out that spelt is a type of grain and therefore ‘spelled’ is correct when referring to spelling. This holds true for American English, BUT, in British English (which technically is English English and therefore the correct version) it is common to use the word ‘spelt’.

Panda’s Word of the Day is based in the former British colony of Australia, which still officially speaks British English, so ‘spelt’ is used correctly.

Language is under threat from SMS, Twitter and other social media which require users to abbreviate words … or so we are told. Yet English today is almost unrecognisable to what it was 1,000 years ago … and the apocalyptic SMS wasn’t responsible for that. Given the linguistic evolution of English, who are we to whinge if some enterprising pundit of modern technology uses common sense in spelling a text, Twitter or Facebook update? 

SMS and social media have certainly introduced their own sub-culture language, even hijacking numbers in their quest to subvert the laws of linguistics. The number ‘8 ‘ is certainly a prime offender, being used to overthrow the suffix ‘ate‘. Some common social media abbreviations include:

– ‘r’ for are
– ‘L8R’ for later
– ‘2moro’ for tomorrow

And then there are the initialisms:

– ‘ROTFLMAO’ for ‘rolling on the floor laughing my ass off’
– ‘LOL’ for ‘laugh out loud’
– ‘TTL’ for ‘talk to you later’
– ‘BBL’ for ‘be back later’

Is language truly under threat though? Yes and no.

‘No‘ … no, it is not under threat from social media. No more so at least, than it was threatened by telegrams. Remember them? Telegrams were a fore-runner of SMS and far more costly. Telegrams were usually charged by the word, so senders would leave words such as ‘a’ and ‘the’ and abbreviate phrases to save money.  Admittedly, people didn’t send telegrams as often as people send SMSs today.

But ‘Yes‘, the english language as we know it is under threat. Not from social media, but quite simply for linguistic evolution. The english that we speak today has borrowed heavily from numerous languages, including latin, greek, french and arabic, amongst others. It has also been influenced by people who couldn’t spell or who thought the previous spelling conventions (if they ever existed) required a good tune-up.

Does it really matter if English changes? Or should I say, ‘if it continues to change‘?

The below bible verse (John 3:16) is copied from various versions of the bible and shows the evolution of the language since the 14^th century. Thank God, that English has evolved:

• Wycliffe (1385) – note that verses were not numbered in this translation: ‘Forsothe God so louede the world, that he 3af his oon bigetun sone, the ech man that bileueth in to him perische not, but haue euere lasting lyf.’  (http://www.biblesofthepast.com/Texts/1380-1385/_File.htm)
• Tyndale (early-mid 16^th century): ‘For God so lovethe the world yt he hath geven his only sonne that none that beleve in him shuld perisshe: but shuld have everlastinge lyf.’ (http://wesley.nnu.edu/fileadmin/imported_site/tyndale/joh.txt)
• King James Version (1611): ‘For God so loued the world p^e world, that he gaue his only begotten Sonne: that whoseuer beleeueth in him, should not perish, but haue euerlasting life.’
  (http://www.biblesofthepast.com/Texts/1611-1611/_File.htm)
• King James Version (1769): ‘For God so love the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ (http://www.biblesofthepast.com/Texts/1611-1769/_File.htm)
• New King James Version (1979): ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’ (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=john%203:16&version=NKJV)

I suspect that some people back in the days of yore, would have complained about the changing face of their language too. Particularly, as foreign words were introduced which tended to happen when conquering, or being conquered by, foreign forces. When compiling the Oxford English Dictionary, words of foreign origin were originally left out (particularly those of the enemy French), however, it became obvious that many had come into common usage, so the decision was made to include some of the more accepted foreign words.

Although English has improved throughout the centuries, it still has so many quirks in spelling, sounds and grammatical rules as to make it a difficult language to learn – particularly if learning it as a second language. There are so many changes that could be made to the language to make it easier. For instance, would it kill us if the following changes were accepted as correct:

• ‘f ‘ instead of ‘gh‘
• ‘f ‘ instead of ‘ph‘
• ‘k’ instead of ‘ch‘
• ‘ch ‘ has a couple of personalities as a ‘k ‘ and a ‘sh ‘, for instance, ‘school ‘, ‘machine ‘
• ‘z ‘ instead of a hard sounding ‘s ‘
• for that matter, ‘s ‘ having a consistent sound, instead of doubling as an ‘s ‘ and a ‘z ‘, e.g. ‘terse ‘ and ‘tease ‘
• why does ‘c ‘ masquerade as both a ‘k ‘ and an ‘s ‘, e.g. ‘cool‘, ‘lettuce‘ (why not spell them, ‘kool‘, ‘letus‘). I propose that the letter ‘c ‘ is redundant and should be dismissed from the alphabet!
• on the subject of redundancy, what is with the letter ‘q ‘? It can’t go anywhere without a ‘u ‘, so why not ditch it and use the versatile letter ‘k ‘?
• why do we use double letters when single ones will do nicely?

Back in the day, most silent letters were pronounced. These days, silent letters are a nightmare. In fact, ‘nightmare ‘ is a nightmare. It has a ‘gh ‘ in it, which is usually pronounced ‘f ‘, yet is silent. ‘Mare ‘ rhymes with ‘air ‘, but is spelt with an ‘are ‘. By itself, ‘are ‘ is pronounced ‘ar ‘ not ‘air ‘. So who are we to whinge if some enterprising pundit of modern technology decides to use some common sense in spelling when sending a text or facebook update?

In some words, there are different letters which are pronounced the same! Why? What is their purpose other than to confuse? Why isn’t ‘confuse ‘ spelt ‘confuze ‘, or ‘confyuz ‘, or ‘konfyuz ‘? What about words that are spelt differently, sound the same and have contradictory meanings? For example, ‘raise ‘ and ‘raze ‘: ‘raise ‘ means to elevate, erect or increase, while ‘raze ‘ means to tear down, demolish or destroy. It’s easy to see the difference between homonyms while reading, but try seeing the difference while speaking without the letters psychedelically appearing before your eyes like a grammatical acid trip.

Then there are some words which have at least two contradictory meanings. For example, dust can mean to remove dust from or to cover in dust, cleave means to tear apart or join together.

I could go on and on about duplication and contradictions in the English language with letters, words and grammar.

Now, I’m not advocating the wholesale, over-night decimation of the alphabet and immediate reconstruction of the rules of grammar. I am saying that the English language has a lot of wriggle room for improvement, some of which will come to fruition along its evolutionary path.

Feel threatened by SMS? Like the telegram, SMS is not going to redefine the English language, it is merely a blip on the grammatical radar. However, the English language is evolving, as it has always done. The language in 100 years will be as strange to us as the language of 100 years ago is. In 500 years, our language of today will be as antiquated as the language of Shakespeare and King James. It will be comprehensible for the most part, but will have phrases, words and terminologies that we just won’t have a clue about.

Rather than being precious about our language changing, rather than demonising elements of its usage, we should study it, master it and accept that change is natural.

CUL8R!

© Shane Duran, 2012.