Eight score ago, Honest Abe brought forth, on this continent, a new question, conceived in mathematics, and dedicated to the proposition that all numerical adjectives are created equal.
Grammar Girl here.
I'm Mignon Fogarty, and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language.
We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff.
This week, we investigate the word "score" and we answer a fascinating question about English plurals.
In our "killer bunnies" episode back in April, we also talked about the use of "dozen, " and that got us thinking about other words based on numerical systems – specifically the use of "score" to represent "20." If you were paying attention during history class, you probably remember that Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in 1863 begins: "Four score and seven years ago …" But when the heck was "four score and seven years ago"?
According to Ben's Guide, part of the Government Printing Office, "a score is another way of saying 20, so Lincoln was referring to 1776, [the year the U.S. declared independence from England], which was 87 years before 1863." So where does the word "score" come from, and what is its meaning?
According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it came from the late Old English "scoru, " meaning "twenty," which came from the Old Norse "skor, " meaning a "mark," "notch," or "incision" (more on that connection later).
The Celts of central Europe likely introduced the word to the English and French.
One of the definitions of the noun "score" in the Macmillan Dictionary is "a group of 20 people or things, " and it is marked as a literary usage, meaning it is not part of modern, everyday language.
