Re: [Fwd: dozenal and hexadecimal digits]

At 6:12 pm -0400 12/5/00, John Cowan wrote:
>Raymond Brown scripsit:
>
>> Ach!  vingt means "twenty", not "thirty two" & trente is "thirty" not
>> "forty eight" etc.
>
>In H.G. Wells's novel _The Sleeper Awakes_ the late 21st century has
>switched to the duodecimal system.  No mention is made AFAIK of the
>digit shapes for ten and eleven, but we have some words:
>
>dozen = 12, twaindy = 2*12, sixdoz = 6*12, sevendy = 7*12
>gross = 12*12, dozand = 12*12*12, myriad = 12*12*12*12
In my late teens & early twenties I was quite keen on the duodecimal system
(I still think it's superior to the decimal one, but accept that the
decimal system is pretty much entrenched world-wide & there are far more
important things to be concerned about in this world then number systems).

I used the symbols X and H for 'ten' & 'eleven' respectively (the first
from the Roman system & the second obviously derived from 11 :)
And IIRC I shortened (or considered shortening) 'eleven' to 'leven'.

As for the names:
DECIMAL    DUODECIMAL    DUODECIMAL
            SYMBOL        NAME
  12         10          dozen
  13         11          dozen one
  14         12          dozen two
   .          .            ....
  22         1X          dozen ten
  23         1H          dozen eleven (or 'dozen leven')
  24         20          tewndoz
  25         21          twendoz one
  .          .             ....
  36         30          thirdoz
  48         40          fordoz  (fourdoz ?)
  60         50          fifdoz  (or 'fivedoz' /'fIvd@z/  :)
  72         60          sixdoz
  84         70          sevendoz
  96         80          eightdoz
 108         90          ninedoz
 120         X0          tendoz
 132         H0          elevendoz (levendoz)
 144        100          a gross
 145        101          a gross and one (cf. Brit: a hundred & one)
  .          .            ...
 288        200          two gross
 298        20X          two gross and ten
  etc       etc            etc.

I never coined words for 12^3 (a dozen gross), but Wells' "dozand" _looks_
attractive; however, would it _sound_ different enough from 'dozen"?  I
think not.  And 'myriad' is IMO no good for 12^4.

But now, of course, it's hexadecimal [took me a time to get used to
misformed Graeco-Latin compound!] numbers that figure rather more largely
in my life   :)

But I've not applied to my to devising an 'English hexadecimal'
terminology.  My admiration goes to the peoples Sumeria & Babylonia with
their sexagesimal system.

Ray.



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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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