Hi
Could you say in what contexts such a reversed form - e.g., four-and-twenty (not twenty four) used with regards to the age - is appropriate in modern English?
Hi Tamara,
Reversing the numbers as you have indicated sounds a bit quaint to me - almost rustic. Sometimes with numbers you could reverse the digits purely for clarification if someone had misheard you but not in general use.
This reversal reminds me of a nursery rhyme:
And that goes way back in history.
Alan
Hi Alan
Thank you for the charming nursery rhyme!
About the (not fashionable :)) ‘five-and-twenty’ - OK.
Tamara
As far as I remember reversing the numbers is far more common in German 
Pamela, if you google ‘five-and-twenty’ (just it!!!), you will be given by 396,000 (!) examples. And many contexts sound (at least for me) quite ‘English’…
I only asked about modern use of the reversion.
Hi,
Please read the following sentences, i abstracted it from “Pride and Prejudice”.
（Mrs Bennet visited her sick daughter , Miss Bennet. This unpleasant conversation happened between her and Mr Darcy. )
(Mrs Bennet) " Certainly, nobody said there were; but as to not meeting with many people in this neighbourhood, I believe there are few neighbourhoods larger. I know we dine with [color=blue]four and twenty families."
I wonder if she meant she knew many families, [color=blue]four and twenty is just an emblematic statement or something else?( 24?) :roll:
FangFang
Hi FangFang,
You’re right. Mrs Bennet in this novel by Jane Austen is well known for two things: she can’t stop talking much to the embarrassment of the long suffering Mr Bennet and also her determination to promote her daughters with the intention of getting them married. In this conversation she is not going to be put off by what she considers the grandness of Mr Darcy and so she maintains they live in a large neighbourhood and also she dines with many families. She therefore plucks the number four and twenty out of the air just because it sounds good and suggests they live in the world of high society.
Alan
Hi,
I was looking for the meaning of the expression FIVE-AND-TWENTY and I found this page in the forum, but the explanation given is not clear for me.
In the following sentence, does FIVE-AND-TWENTY simply mean 25 or it is an expression with a different meaning?
<<You again took the key out, and carried it away with you to some one of the FIVE-AND-TWENTY rooms on this floor>>.
I hope you can help me.
Cheers!
Hi Lobo,
Basically, it’s archaic – i.e. we normally don’t say it that way nowadays. It means the same thing as twenty-five (25).
[color=darkblue]_________________________________________________________
[size=75]“To create man was a quaint and original idea, but to add the sheep was tautology.” ~ Mark Twain[/size]
It’s not just ‘twenty-five’ that carries the alternative expression either.
You might also see older texts mentioning four and twenty, three and twenty, two and twenty, etc,
Incidentally, you could still hear that construction used locally by older members of the community in this area if it happened to be twenty-five past the hour when you asked them the time:
“It’s five and twenty past three,” instead of the more familiar, “It’s twenty-five past three.”
Hi Lobo,
Here is an example of this ‘number reversal’ from a children’s nursery rhyme showing you how old it is. It is supposed to date back to the 17th century:
Alan
On a mountain, there is a house which is four and a hundred years old.
The house was built by my grand grand father. The walls were entirely made of rectangular pieces of stone, some of which are very heavy, especially those pieces at the corners of the wall, and roof was made of chopped wood slats. My grand father has substituted the slats with baked clay tiles.
When I mention this old house I like to use the form “four and a hundred”.
Anyhow, please correct the text.
Thanks
On a mountain, there is a house which is one hundred and four years old.
The house was built by my great grandfather. The walls are made entirely of rectangular pieces of stone, some of which are very heavy, especially those pieces at the corners of the wall. The roof was made of chopped wood slats but my grandfather has substituted baked clay tiles for the slats.
You may “like to use the phrase four and a hundred” but once the number rises above ‘nine and ninety’ it is incorrect to do so, even using the antiquated number reversal form.
‘Rectangular’ is acceptable, though not strictly correct - they are cuboids.
You need to avoid the run-on when speaking about the roof, because the sentence about the wall is quite long without it.
Use of the past tense is acceptable, because you started by speaking about it being built, but as the walls are still made of these materials, I have made the suggestion of changing it to the present tense. It wouldn’t be incorrect if you changed it back though.
Thanks for the word cuboid.
If I understood one of my on-line dictionaries “slats” are usually made of a dark gray rock that can be easily divided into thin peaces.
“Shingle” could be better choice. (Shingles are made of pine)
shingle ~ In Serbian, šindra (shindra)
I checked this using Google Translate.
Thanks
You mean ‘pieces’ (same pronunciation but different spelling and meaning).
I’ve never understood ‘shingles’ to be specifically pine. My dictionary lists several possible materials.
In my opinion, it is not must that shingles be made of pine but pine is good because of its resin.
The shingles made of pine last for decades.
Another meaning, unrelated to previous posts: In western New York State, the highway that combines NY Route 5 and US Route 20 is commonly called “five and twenty”. This was originally a stagecoach road and was the region’s primary east-west route until the building of the Interstate Highway System.
Hi everybody!
I really appreciate your interest in clarifying this subject.
When I first read that expression (five-and-twenty), I thought that it could be a way of saying ‘a lot’ or maybe that it could be an expression used to indicate a no defined number. But now it is clear to me. It is just a ‘number reversal’ and it is archaic.
Cheers!