etymology - Why is it "thirteen" and not "threeteen"?



For example:



fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen



These are all number+teen.


What is wrong with threeteen and fiveteen? Why are 13 and 15 written "differently"? Are they coming from third+teen and fifth+teen? If so, why were d and h removed? What is a "thir" and a "fift"?


I am utterly puzzled.


(not to mention eleven and twelve, which could have been oneteen and twoteen, but has been addressed here)




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

verbs - "Baby is creeping" vs. "baby is crawling" in AmE

commas - Does this sentence have too many subjunctives?

time - English notation for hour, minutes and seconds

grammatical number - Use of lone apostrophe for plural?

etymology - Origin of "s--t eating grin"

etymology - Where does the phrase "doctored" originate?

word choice - Which is the correct spelling: “fairy” or “faerie”?