Comments on: Tetheradick, Metheradick, Bumfit

By: Keith W

Keith W — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 14:57:54 +0000

The “peddera” and “pimp” are recognisably Welsh (”pedwar”, for four, and “pump”, for five)

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:46:08 +0000

I knew YTT from the some Opie book or other.

But I was unaware of “PIMP, HAATA” - urban shepherd alert!

By: pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør

pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:15:47 +0000

i guess there’s a ghost of counting in 20s still in english, when eg you say “three score and ten” for 70

hharrison birtwistle wrote an opera called yan tan tethera but i don’t know it

By: Kat but logged out innit

Kat but logged out innit — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:53:26 +0000

In modern Welsh you can count decimally or vigesimal. Everything is the same up to 10, but once you run out of fingers things get interesting. So eg 34 = “twenty plus 14″, and 60 = ‘three twenties’. Brilliantly, 18 has its own number which translates to ‘two nines’.

Of course I had to look all this up because I learned the decimal way instead: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Welsh/Numbers