Thursday, September 11, 2014

Literacy vs. Numeracy

The Wall St. Journal had an article saying it's harder to learn math if you're an English speaker. Well, harder than if you're a Chinese speaker.

The argument, which I've seen before, is that the way we say the numbers from 11 to 19 is inconsistent with the rest of the system.

You know, instead of saying seventeen, we should say tenty-seven. Instead of saying twelve, we should say tenty-two. Or something like that. Apparently Chinese does something like that.

What I tentatively like about "tenty"
is that it rhymes with twenty.

Alas, who could have foreseen
that kids would be undone by "fourteen"?

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