WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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"Four score and seven years ago,

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"our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation."

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Lincoln's Gettysburg Address doesn't sound quite right in a British accent, I know.

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But, I'm on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial,

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and it seems an appropriate thing to recite.

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Let's have a talk about those first few words,

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"Four score and seven years ago"

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It's a weird way of putting "87" isn't it?

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'Score' is an archaic term for twenty.

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Why would a great orator choose that, and why does it sound so resonant?

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Well, the answer goes back to base 20 counting. Vigesimal.

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Which is used all over the world to this day.

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There's some European languages who use it,

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Welsh, traditionally used it. Although decimals have been slipping in lately.

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There are African languages, American languages that use it all over.

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And French used it as well.

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If you ever learn French you will know that 87,

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the number that Lincoln is talking about,

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is "quatre-vingt-sept".

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Four twenties, and seven. Four score, and seven.

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It's resonant because it's a holdover from much older language.

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It was used in the Bible,

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not because of translations from older languages,

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but because it sounds authoritative.

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It sounds like the word of God.

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At least, in the versions that still use archaic language.

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Modern translations will tend not to.

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So you have this old word that is used to bring up an old sense of 'this is how we used to be'.

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It's used in speeches.

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It's used in narration.

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And it was used, of course, by the great Mr. Lincoln.

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Something, from Washington DC, that you might not have known.

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If I say I'm an old mate of Bazza's, do you think they'll let me in?

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No. No, they... No.

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