Een-en-twentig would make sense, though… wonder if that was his starting point?
jj5406
January 9, 2015, 8:48pm
22
First, my apologies to Mike Pesca, who responded to my emails very rapidly. It’s only due to a quirk of my system that I didn’t actually see those replies until much later.
On Jan 5 Mike Pesca wrote:
I saw your Straight Dope discussion, and wanted to ad (but am blocked by the administrator or something)
It is from very close to what 21 would be in Olde English.
http://wmich.edu/medieval/resources/IOE/inflnumb.html
The numbers thirteen through nineteen are made by adding -tīene to the numbers þrēo through nigon: þrēotīene, fēowertīene, etc. From twenty through the sixties, numbers are in the form ān and twentiġ ‘twenty-one’.
Just like the word “fortnight” is very close to the Olde English for [14]. But over the weeks I stopped saying An-and- twentig and just went with Antantwig, sounded better. So I did in a few weeks what it [normally] takes a language a few generations to do on its own.
So capybara, you were right on.
-J
Just registered on straight dope for the sole purpose of thanking you guys for providing such a satisfying thread.