Words

Comments

In my opinion, the numbers should be as close to what we're used to as possible. There's no reason to put confusion on top of everything by changing terminology entirely.

I will use T for ten and E for eleven...

The numbers 1-9 should all be exactly the same.
I also think T should remain "ten."
I believe that "eleven" is too long a word to use; three syllables is too much for a single digit. So I would suggest shortening E to simply "el" or a similar word.

Clearly we cannot call 10 "twelve" because this lends itself to the decimal system.
To me it makes sense to call 10 "dozen." After all that's where the number system get it's name from! It's also a unique term which is easily identified as "twelve" of something. It could also be referred to as "a dozen" or "one dozen" in the same way we use the term "hundred."

I have always thought that it's odd our numbering system doesn't pick up a pattern until twenty.
So why not fix that?
We don't need special names for the "teens." Just "a dozen one" (11) and so on. And beyond 20, why all the prefixes and suffixes? "two dozen three" = 23. Again, these just makes sense. When you hear a number like that, you know exactly how much it is, and it's simple to write in dozenal. 100= "gross" in the same way we use the word "hundred"

I'm not very certain about the terms for 1000 and beyond. Perhaps something like "great" or "grand?"

I think it would be beneficial to create prefixes like those in the metric system. They would be an excellent basis to form the words for numbers beyond a gross and they would be very useful for units.

And so we have...

1 one11 dozen one ("a dozen one," "one dozen one," etc.)10 dozen ("a dozen," "one dozen," etc.)
2 two12 dozen two20 two dozen
3 three13 dozen three30 three dozen
4 four14 dozen four40 four dozen
5 five15 dozen five50 five dozen
6 six16 dozen six60 six dozen
7 seven17 dozen seven70 seven dozen
8 eight18 dozen eight80 eight dozen
9 nine19 dozen nine90 nine dozen
T ten1T dozen tenT0 ten dozen
E el1E dozen elE0 el dozen

100 gross ("a gross," "one gross," etc.)

for one last example...
4T3= four gross ten dozen three

I think naming them in this way is maybe a bit more wordy than we're used to with decimal numbers in English. But it's very simple to pick up and there would be little confusion. Besides when you get used to it's not bad at all. Look at some German numbers and I think you'll agree. And I don't think a naming system for numbers is intended for efficiency, they're for organization and clarity. If you're really so lazy that you can't pronounce an extra syllable or two you probably will just be reading off the numbers anyways... (4T3= four ten three)

Joshua Harkey