Page 95 - All About History - Issue 52-17

History Answers

When did
we stop

saying “four
and twenty”
instead of
twenty-four?

Jacqueline Harris
In written and spoken English, it seems
that ‘twenty-four’ has been much more
popular than ‘four and twenty’ since at
least 1800, and the same goes for the
two versions of most other numbers.
The ‘four and twenty’ form originally
comes from the German (‘vier und
zwanzig’) and survived into the late 19th
century in legal and academic texts,
but also, ironically, in novels where the
speaker was rural or uneducated. It
hasn’t completely died out, though. In
parts of Norfolk and Shropshire you will
still hear people tell the time as ‘five and
twenty past.’

Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of
Penzance (1879) used both “twenty
eight” and “nine and twenty” in the
same song

How were wine bottles opened
before the corkscrew was invented?

Carol Linden
Wine wasn’t stored in narrow-necked glass bottles until the
18th century, when glass blowers first started mass-
SAMUEL HENSHALL producing them. Before that, wine was stored
Nationality: British in wooden barrels or large clay jars and only
Born-died: c.1764-1807 decanted into jugs just before serving. Early
wine bottles didn’t have the cork jammed
Samuel Henshall all the way in and could be opened by
was a rector and hand. The first corkscrews were based
Brief Oxford don but his on a tool to clean musket barrels,
Samuel
Bio academic career was Henshall’s called a gun worm.
undistinguished. corkscrew
Several of his publications were innovation
criticised as boastful and full was the collar “Wine was
of blunders. He was awarded at the base of
the first patent for a corkscrew the screw to stored in Uncover the real story behind the
in 1795, but similar designs allow the seal
were already in use and he was to be broken Curse of Tutankhamun at…
therefore labelled as being a before pulling wooden
‘piratical screwmaker.’ the cork
barrels” historyanswers.co.uk

1925 1953 1961 1977

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is indicted in Tennessee for test of a nuclear artillery to Congress that America opens in 43 US preview
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Butler Act, which had banned been almost entirely on the Moon and returning him the 10th highest ever box
evolution from the US curriculum. replaced by tactical missiles. safely to the Earth.” office success in the US.

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