[TO THE EDITOR or TILE "SPECTATOR. ")
Sin,—A letter in your issue of August 13th about good and bad units makes me venture to express the terror I feel that
we are going to lose our precious dozen, and be reduced to counting entirely by tens. Twelve is the best unit we can possibly have, and ten one of the worst. Twelve can be multiplied and divided by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 9. Ten by 2 and 5 only. All that is needed is figures for two more units. Ten and eleven would still be their names as they are in the first dozen. Twelves would take the place of tens as divisions of the hundred. I suggest as possible the Roman ten X as one figure, and an arrowhead 4. as the second. The figures would run as under :-1, one; 2, two; 3, three; 4, four ; 5, five ; 6, six ; 7, seven; 8, eight ; 9, nine; X, ten; .4, eleven ; 10, twelve (first double figure); 11, twelve one; 12, twelve two; 13, twelve three; 14, twelve four; 15, twelve five ; 16, twelve six ; 17, twelve seven ; 18, twelve eight; 19, twelve nine; IX, twelve ten ; 14., twelve eleven; 20, twoty (short for twc twelves) ; and so on to ninety eleven, after which would come atenty and elty (short for eleventy). After elty eleven, one -hundred, and so on to thousands and millions. I do hope the nation will think this matter out before discarding twelve in favour of ten. The alteration suggested would make addition, subtraction; and division quite easy, and rob the multiplication
table of its terrors. I also imagine it would reduce the use of fractions, but I do not know enough about it to be sure.
P.S.—You can divide a " twelves " hundred into halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths, thirtieths, and sixtieths without employing an odd number or a half.
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