You are using you thumb as the counter, counting the three phalanges of each each of the four fingers on the one hand. It works well for counting items over an extended period of time because you can just keep the thumb in position and of course the other hand’s fingers extended, and not have to remember what number you were on when you’ve gotten distracted.
If our numbering system was based on our hands, wouldn’t it be base 11? Nobody counts 0-9 on their hands, they count from 1 to 10.
[QUOTE=ExcitedIdiot]
If our numbering system was based on our hands, wouldn’t it be base 11? Nobody counts 0-9 on their hands, they count from 1 to 10.
[/QUOTE]
It’s probably not related to any counting mechanism that was used on actual human hands. Long before the decimal positional number system was introduced, people were grouping things into tens (or twenties, or sixties), and powers of ten — and so ten was a logical choice for the base of a positional system, when it was conceived.
Plus, I can’t imagine base 11 ever becoming very popular.
[ Insert Spinal Tap joke here. ]