Schooltastic

The word “twelve” makes no sense.  Sure, its etymology can be traced back to where it meant something like “two left over,” but, to a child learning math in America any time after 1200 AD, it’s just a nonsense word.  Kids will be happy to tell you that twelve is made “with a one and a two,” which is not true.  One and two make three.  Ten and two make twelve, and that’s what we ought to call it: “ten-and-two.”  Counting from nine would sound like, “nine, ten, ten-and-one, ten-and-two, ten-and-three…” etc.

That’s how it would go all the way up to the number following ten-and-nine, which ought to be “two tens.”  Yes, “twenty” is another nonsense word to modern ears.  If you have two hundreds, you call them “two hundred.”  Two thousands are “two thousand.”  For two tens, we substitute archaic vocabulary: “twenty.”

Of course, by a certain age, we understand that “twenty” means two groups of ten, and that “twelve” is two more than ten.  We can also learn to do math in French, but why would we add an extra step of translation to kids who are just learning how to think about numbers?

The language does make a difference.  A problem like “ninety minus forty” can intimidate younger students; the numbers seem large and unwieldy.  However, if Billy had nine apples and ate four of them, most kids five years and older could tell you he has five left.  If they can recognize it as simply, “Nine tens minus four tens,” then the word “tens” becomes just another thing you can have nine or four of, like apples.

It’s not just about making math easier to learn, though, that’s a good enough goal in and of itself.  It’s about understanding.  Using language that obfuscates meaning makes math into an arcane series of steps, rather than a language in which to converse.

I’ll cover more of the ways we use language to mangle mathematical understanding in my next post!