12:12 on 12/12Ok, this may be the thinnest reason to talk about word origins, but a fun word in any
12:12 on 12/12Ok, this may be the thinnest reason to talk about word origins, but a fun word in any case. The word twelve was early in the English language, forming in Old English as twelf literally meaning two left (over ten) as far back as the twelfth century! This system of counting came from the Proto Germanic formation *twa-lif-, a compound word formed by combining the root for two (*twa) and *lif-, which was the verb to leave. English has a stronger echo of to leave in the number eleven, which I hardly need to define here. Many Northern European languages adopted this formation: Old Saxon had twelif, Old Norse tolf, Old Frisian twelef, Middle Dutch twalef, and so on. And you can thank me later for not waking you up twelve hours ago to pester you with this word origin. -- source link
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