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140. Num8er5

140. Num8er5

The Allusionist · Helen Zaltzman

August 30, 202133m 24s

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Show Notes

We use verbal numbers and we use numerals - why do we need both? Why do we have the ones we have? What happened to Roman numerals? And what's loserish about the fiftieth Super Bowl? Stephen Chrisomalis, professor of anthropology and linguistics and author of the book Reckonings: Numerals, Cognition and History, returns to the Allusionist to explain our current numbers, and why we shouldn't get too arrogant about them.

There's more about this episode, and a transcript, at theallusionist.org/numbers.

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Topics

acrophonicsociety & culturealphabetsuper bowlcolonisationarabic numeralsgoogollexiconeducationcomedywordsvocabularynumericalliteraturelanguageancient greeksgastrolithhistorycapitalsglobalisationnumber systemsnumberinghatsnumeralsentertainmentstephen chrisomalishelen zaltzmanverbal numbersupper caseancient romansalphabetic numeralsgraphicroman numeralsnumbersartsetymologyloserimperialismkpilinguistics