# Eighteen, not eightteen **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 26, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771 "2012-01-26T20:25:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![srmccaffrey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@srmccaffrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/srmccaffrey)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/1 "2012-01-26T20:25:15Z")
The suffix is “teen”, yes? So why is 18 spelled “eighteen” and not “eightteen”? Is there a grammar rule governing double T’s? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/2 "2012-01-26T20:49:48Z")
There are no grammar rules. ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/3 "2012-01-26T20:59:13Z")
We use -teen instead of onety-one, onety-two, onety three, etc. as is done for twenty and above, and that we use thirteen instead of threeteen and fifteen instead of fiveteen, etc. You think there are strict and simple rules that need to be followed? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/4 "2012-01-26T20:59:36Z")
It’s whatever people want it to be; spelling and grammar evolve by consensus. Though in this case, it comes from adding -teen (or, rather, -tyne] to ehta. “Eight” did not have the extra “t” until after “eighteen” was coined. > [@OED](#): > > c1000 West Saxon Gospels: Luke (Corpus Cambr.) xiii. 4 Swa þa **ehta-tyne** [1160 Hatton ehte-tyna] ofer þa feoll se stypel on siloa. > [@OED](#): > > 1297 R. Gloucester’s Chron. (1810) 385 As in þe ȝer of grace a þousend ȝer yt was And four score & **eyȝte**. (emphasis added) ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/5 "2012-01-26T20:59:47Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > There are no grammar rules. Grammar is nothing but rules. More to the point, however, there has never been any logic to English spelling conventions. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/6 "2012-01-26T21:05:07Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > It’s whatever people want it to be; spelling and grammar evolve by consensus. > > Though in this case, it comes from adding -teen (or, rather, -tyne] to ehta. “Eight” did not have the extra “t” until after “eighteen” was coined. I hate to tell you this, but **ehta** and **eight** each have exactly the same number of **t** s in them. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/7 "2012-01-26T21:26:46Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Though in this case, it comes from adding -teen (or, rather, -tyne] to ehta. “Eight” did not have the extra “t” until after “eighteen” was coined. That doesn’t look like “eight” getting an extra “t”, but rather “ehta” losing the final “a”. When that “a” went, the two t’s in “ehta-teen” merged into one “t”. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/8 "2012-01-26T21:30:55Z")
We drop the ‘ve’ in “five” and replace with ‘f’ to get “fifteen.” Why not drop the ‘t’ from “eight” to eliminate a silly extra letter. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/9 "2012-01-26T21:33:13Z")
> [@srmccaffrey](#): > > The suffix is “teen”, yes? So why is 18 spelled “eighteen” and not “eightteen”? Is there a grammar rule governing double T’s? nott that i know. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/10 "2012-01-26T21:41:11Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > Grammar is nothing but rules. > > More to the point, however, there has never been any logic to English spelling conventions. I’ll vote for this. There is no logic to English spelling conventions. Even the famous “i before e except after c” is fancied to sink under its own weight. ---
**Author:** ![Lukeinva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lukeinva/32/17872_2.png) [@Lukeinva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lukeinva)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/11 "2012-01-26T21:43:04Z")
Why does friedo have Charter Member under his name _twice_? Charter Member Charter Member ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/12 "2012-01-26T21:52:21Z")
When you have a two syllable word, and vowel in the first syllable is short, you will find a double consonant after that vowel. Like in “willow”. If it were written “wilow”, it would tend to be pronounced “WIE-low”. Consider “Tiger” vs “Tigger”. There are exceptions, of course, like “sugar”, but that’s also a loan word. I can’t think of any words where the consonant is double, and the vowel is long. If we wrote “Eighttenn”, it would tend to indicate that the vowel sound before it would be short-- something like “AH-teen”. Of course, we have the utter bastardization of the vowel sound “eigh” which has it’s own problems, but still, the doublet would be a very odd spelling in English. ---
**Author:** ![Alley\_Dweller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alley_dweller/32/430_2.png) [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/13 "2012-01-26T21:57:26Z")
What really bugs me is that it is “forty” and not “fourty.” ---
**Author:** ![Jragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jragon)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/14 "2012-01-26T22:05:15Z")
> [@Alley\_Dweller](#): > > What really bugs me is that it is “forty” and not “fourty.” In one of my programming classes we had a project to write a simple parsing program that translated numbers to their word representations and back (i.e. 112 \<-\> one hundred twelve). The biggest error by far? Half the people wrote “fourty” for “forty.” It was so bad they actually rewrote the test cases to accept “fourty” and only take off a point for the first occurrence of the error, rather than have everybody completely fail every test case where “forty” came up :smack:. ---
**Author:** ![Bilbo1967](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@Bilbo1967](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bilbo1967)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/15 "2012-01-26T22:07:59Z")
Can I suggest a perusal of Bill Bryson’s [Mother Tongue](http://www.amazon.com/Mother-Tongue-English-How-That/dp/0380715430/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327615615&sr=1-1)? It’s a discussion of the English language with a bias towards the perceived idiosyncrasies of English and the differences to American English. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/16 "2012-01-26T22:11:56Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I can’t think of any words where the consonant is double, and the vowel is long. Plainness Vainness Zealless etc There’s a bunch more, but those are in-line with the OP’s question about a stem word+suffix that results in a double consonant. > [@](#): > > If we wrote “Eighttenn”, it would tend to indicate that the vowel sound before it would be short-- something like “AH-teen”. I don’t think it implies anything of the sort. “Ei” (or “eigh,” really) being shortened to “ah” wouldn’t even occur to me as a possibility as a native English speaker. To me, it’s that the consonant cluster “ghtt” in “eightteen” looks stupid, so “eighteen” it was. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/17 "2012-01-26T22:26:11Z")
Okay, iuf you write out “12th” using only letters, how do you spell it? ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/18 "2012-01-26T22:45:29Z")
th? ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/19 "2012-01-26T22:50:22Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > That doesn’t look like “eight” getting an extra “t”, but rather “ehta” losing the final “a”. When that “a” went, the two t’s in “ehta-teen” merged into one “t”. Indeed, the t in eight has a strong pedigree, both in modern related languages (eight is acht both in Dutch and German, and in both languages the -t- is retained for eighteen, making _achttien_ and _achtzehn_. But it also shows up in the romance languages (otto, huit, ocho), going back to ‘octo’ in latin. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771/20 "2012-01-26T22:51:23Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > Okay, iuf you write out “12th” using only letters, how do you spell it? twelfth? Is this a trick? have a been wooshed? why do you want to know how to spell twelfth? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/eighteen-not-eightteen/610771.md?page=2)