Hyphens, quite intriguing little symbols, don’t you think?
For those familiar with Pride and Prejudice or the relatively ‘older’ way of speaking English, know that at a certain point certain numbers were said the other way around: one-and-twenty instead of twenty-one.
I went into research mode (obviously) and asked myself when Jane Austen used which way of writing numbers or whether she actually used our modern day way at all. Similar to the other Austen posts, I used the amazing tool, WordSmith Tools (to which I am very much addicted). Since there are a lot of numbers, I decided to go about this in what I would like to call a relatively time-saving way.
Using the lovely Concord tool and typing one-*/two-*/three-*/four-*/five-*/six-*/seven-*/eight-*/nine-*/*ty-* .
Just for clarity’s sake, I’ll explain the syntax quickly.
/ = search for multiple items at the same time
* = search within a word
NOTE: Be sure to put your settings so that a hyphen is included in a word and not taken as a word separator (which is the standard setting).The reason why I used *ty-* is to search in a more time-saving way for twenty, thirty, forty etc. instances.
Check the data (105 hits). Not only numbers can have *ty-* in it nor does three-* only give three-and-twenty etc. results, for example.
Examples that don’t match the written numbers that I have mentioned before going on this quest are:
- two-penny : “…the two-penny post…” (Sense and Sensibility, 2x)
- three-shilling : “…as large as a three-shilling piece.” (Persuasion)
- empty-headed : “…but as empty-headed as himself…” (Pride and Prejudice)
(total of irrelevant hits: 12 (2x two-penny; three-shilling; three-deckers; 3x three-quarters; vanity-baits; pretty-behaved; pretty-spoken; empty-headed; and nine-hundredth)
This leaves you with 93 relevant hits in total!
41 of these instances are *ty-* ones and 39 begin with a number under 10.
So Jane Austen does use both! But, does she use them in the same novel or context? Or is it that, for example, one publisher preferred one of the hyphenations over the other?
Sense and Sensibility (6), for example, only writes it the twenty-one way: thirty-five (4), twenty-four, thirty-six.
Persuasion (24), on the other hand, uses both styles:
fifty-four, twenty-nine, nine-and-twenty, sixty-two, two-and-twenty, twenty-two, seven-and-twenty, eight-and-thirty, four-and-twenty (3), twenty-four (3), twenty-three, five-and-thirty, eighty-seven, seven-and-twenty, one-and-thirty, ninety-nine, three-and-twenty, five-and-twenty, eight-and-twentieth, five-and-twenty.
Both styles also occur quite near one another as well:
“He had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop on Bond Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them.”
Northanger Abbey (4) and The Watsons (1) are like Sense and Sensibility since it only uses the twenty-one variety as well. Pride and Prejudice (10), Mansfield Park (20) and Emma (28), however, are like Persuasion in that they use both styles.
Does this mean that the form of one-and-twenty does not exist in Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey?
Since twenty is used the most, I used Concord to search for instances of and twenty. And Lo’ and behold!
Sense and Sensibility (9) does have instances of the one-and-twenty variety, but without the hyphens!
“…not more than six or seven and twenty…”
“…any young man of five and twenty…”
Northanger Abbey (8) also has instances of this variety:
“…four or five and twenty…”
“…only three and twenty miles!”
The Watsons does not have any occurrences of and twenty, but and thirty does occur:
“…only five and thirty minutes…”
“…of five or six and thirty…”
The Watsons is actually an unpublished novel… Could this indicate that Jane Austen preferred to write the one-and-twenty instances without the hyphen?
I took a quick peek at the manuscripts and the first quotation she actually wrote: five & thirty, and for the second one: 5 or 6 & 30.
Did Jane Austen only use the & sign instead of writing it in full? Or did she prefer to write numbers as numbers and not written out in full?
A peek at her manuscript does show that she did use instances such as one and twenty, but only (as far as I looked) without hyphens!
But this is all for now! If you wonder about certain usages of Jane Austen, please let me know so I can research some more (if I can’t think of anything else to search myself ;-)).
For the Life of Me... 