4&20

[goingtocalifornia]

Was there a time in English history when one had to describe time the same way we do it in German language?

Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher who had a great theory about a horse being able to live without eating, and who demonstrated it so well, that he had got his own horse down to a straw a day, and would unquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and rampacious animal on nothing at all, if he had not died, four-and-twenty hours before he was to have had his first comfortable bait of air.

And..”rampacious” or rapacious?

 

[Rover_KE]

A couple of hundred years ago, four-and-twenty would have been very common in everyday English. I'm not sure that people had to use that construction, however.

Rampacious

Ram*pa"cious\, a. High-spirited; rampageous. [Slang] --Dickens.

(Dictionary.com)

Rover

 

[emsr2d2]

Two of my grandparents used to say "It's five and twenty past..." when telling the time. No-one in my family of a younger generation uses the construction though.

 

[BobK]

Was there a time in English history when one had to describe time the same way we do it in German language?

...

Wrong question.

• We don't have to do anything (except grow up using the language of our parents)
• There wasn't any one time when this trait emerged
• The tense is inappropriate - because the usage is still current
• In any case it doesn't apply only to time.

Modern English and Modern German have a common ancestor. Every English child either has relatives who still use this sort of number-system or remembers it from the nursery rhyme:

Sing a song of sixpence
A pocketful of rye
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie

[What it means is irrelevant; the number, at least, is clear.]

b

 

[Mannysteps]

Not a teacherRather than just time you are talking about counting in general. Here's a nursery rhyme supposedly originated in the 18th century. The first line is also the tittle, should you want to look it up:

Sing a song of sixpence
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.

Also:

Rapacious - greedy, gluttonous, piggish

M.

 

[goingtocalifornia]

Wrong question.
Modern English and Modern German have a common ancestor.

b

Yes, Romans definitely should have stayed longer and defend Britain against the invaders who had coursed so much trouble for us learning English today.

 

[BobK]

Yes, Romans definitely should have stayed longer and defended Britain against the invaders who had [STRIKE]coursed[/STRIKE] caused [same vowel, different consonant: /kɔ:zd/] so much trouble for us learning English today.

;-)

b

 

[Mannysteps]

Only that the Romans were the invaders.

M.

 

[Tdol]

My father used to use four and twenty. I haven't heard it used much in recent years, and only by older people.

 

[BobK]

Only that the Romans were the invaders.

M.

But they weren't the first or the last invaders. Others spoke languages with Germanic traits.

b

 

[Mannysteps]

Yes, I know that of the Romans was a humurous comment. Apart from that the Roman invasion happenned about four centuries before the Anglo-Saxon settlements, later to become kingdoms, in which English, also a Germanic language, arose. Goingtocalifornia: if the Romans had held their ground probably English would never have come into existence.

M.

 

[goingtocalifornia]

Only that the Romans were the invaders.

M.

From today's "The Telegraph":
"....Geneticists claim that as many as half of Britons have German blood, a consequence of Anglo-Saxon migration after the Roman Empire fell...".