In the scale just given, it will be noticed that the larger number precedes
the smaller, giving 10 + 1, 10 + 2, etc., instead of 1 + 10, 2 + 10, etc.
This seems entirely natural, and hardly calls for any comment whatever. But
we have only to consider the formation of our English "teens" to see that
our own method is, at its inception, just the reverse of this. Thirteen,
14, and the remaining numerals up to 19 are formed by prefixing the smaller
number to the base; and it is only when we pass 20 that we return to the
more direct and obvious method of giving precedence to the larger. In
German and other Teutonic languages the inverse method is continued still
further. Here 25 is _fuenf und zwanzig_, 5 and 20; 92 is _zwei und neunzig_,
2 and 90, and so on to 99. Above 100 the order is made direct, as in
English. Of course, this mode of formation between 20 and 100 is
permissible in English, where "five and twenty" is just as correct a form
as twenty-five. But it is archaic, and would soon pass out of the language
altogether, were it not for the influence of some of the older writings
which have had a strong influence in preserving for us many of older and
more essentially Saxon forms of expression.
Both the methods described above are found in all parts of the world, but
what I have called the direct is far more common than the other. In
general, where the smaller number precedes the larger it signifies
multiplication instead of addition.
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