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I wonder why threescore means sixty. I only found it means three times twenty, the math is correct, yet what link between twenty and "score" ?

Kit Z. Fox
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Paul L
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2 Answers2

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Score simply means 20. The link is the same as between "table" and the thing I put my dinner plate on.

Now, as to how this came to be, etymonline has this to say (emphasis mine):

score (n.) Look up score at Dictionary.com late Old English scoru "twenty," from Old Norse skor "mark, notch, incision; a rift in rock," also, in Icelandic, "twenty," from Proto-Germanic *skura-, from PIE root *(s)ker- (1) "to cut" (see shear).

The connecting notion probably is counting large numbers (of sheep, etc.) with a notch in a stick for each 20. That way of counting, called vigesimalism, also exists in French: In Old French, "twenty" (vint) or a multiple of it could be used as a base, as in vint et doze ("32"), dous vinz et diz ("50"). Vigesimalism was or is a feature of Welsh, Irish, Gaelic and Breton (as well as non-IE Basque), and it is speculated that the English and the French picked it up from the Celts. Compare tally (n.).

So it's most likely a word that was used to indicate (multiples of) twenty units.

Even in modern science there is a non-decimal SI unit of quantity that equals roughly 6.022×1023 units. It's called a mole.

I find it interesting that you got stuck on three score as the use of score that I thought of first, and I think may be one of the most famous uses is in the Gettysburg address

But there it is, of course, four score and seven years.

oerkelens
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  • thanks for your answer. For your curiosity, I got stuck on it reading the bible => revelations 13:18, searching for references on Iron maiden's "the number of the beast". About the number of Avogadro, I don't understand what it has to do here ? it's the exact integer number of atoms of carbon needed to have 12g of it ... Both it's origin and reason to exist are clear and aren't related to how a language works and changes with time. – Paul L Aug 22 '14 at 12:41
  • Ah the bible. I should have known (recognized) it :) The reference to Avogadro is because mole = 6,022x10^23 items, just like score means 20 items. dozen is another example for 12 items. – oerkelens Aug 22 '14 at 12:59
  • Quatre-vingt (fourscore) is still the way one says eighty in French (and counting upwards of sixty is done by twenties — seventy is sixty-ten and ninety is fourscore-ten), and sheep-scoring numbers are still used both for sheep-scoring (counting the flock) and in children's games in parts of English Britain (areas where the original Celtic languages have not merely been marginalized, but displaced altogether). – bye Aug 22 '14 at 13:10
  • I agree mole represents a number of items just like scores, yet mole is just shorten for "molecular weight"(the actual origin is from German "Molekulargewicht"). I was troubled by the choice of "mole" as an example because there is not one but plenty of non-decimal SI units used in modern science. – Paul L Aug 22 '14 at 13:40
  • Sorry for bringing it up. If you have any other SI units that represent items, be my guest. Wherever mole was derived from, it is now the actual SI unit, not a shortened form of anything any more. So I thought it was a nice example of something very similar to score. With its own etymology, like most words. – oerkelens Aug 22 '14 at 13:47
  • a second is 9 192 631 770 periods of radiation between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom. – Paul L Aug 22 '14 at 13:59
  • You probably find this example ridiculous. It is. My point is : mole isn't a quantity, it's a unit, avogadro's number is a quantity. The trick is : mole is the unit of quantities. – Paul L Aug 22 '14 at 14:09
  • I'd like to thank you again for your answer which was exactly what I was looking for. No hard feelings about this "mole" debate ? – Paul L Aug 22 '14 at 14:14
  • And did the Irish, Scots, Gauls, and Welsh pick it up from the pre-Celtic Basque-speaking inhabitants of Europe? – Peter Shor Aug 22 '14 at 19:13
  • @AkuOni119 — Don't worry about it :-) – oerkelens Aug 22 '14 at 19:57
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One relatively obscure meaning of the word "score" is twenty. Etymonline

Simon B
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  • Obscure? Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. – tchrist Aug 22 '14 at 14:13