scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> >> don't you British spell 32 as two and thirty?  at least, it is that
> >> way in
> >> Victorian literature
> >
> > I think that is just for literary effect, as in "Four and twenty
> > blackbirds, baked in a pie".
>
> No! In Old English we did say numbers that way round, but along the way
> it evolved into the current way round. Note that German (which comes
> from the same roots) still has the numbers that way round.

No!?

It is true what you said about the way numbers were said. But and it is a big
butt. ;-)
I suspect that in Victorian times and especially in literature that style of
numbering was only used by the upper classes and country folk. Both being behind
the times. Trollope (the old snob that he was) used it s a signifier of the
aristocracy along with words like se'n night. Long gone out of fashion by that
time. Interestingly fourteen night lives on as fortnight.

Stephen

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