We ought to know aught about AUGHT

[Dr. Goodword]

• aught •

Pronunciation: awt • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun, mass, Adverb

Meaning: 1. [Noun] Anything, all, everything 2. [Noun] Nothing, zero, or the symbol for zero, 0. 3. [Adverb] At all.

Notes: English has a peculiar way of expressing years, for example 1923 = nineteen (hundred) twenty-three. All other non-Germanic Indo-European languages use thousand, as in one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three. This presents English with a problem for the first decade of a millennium, since "twenty hundred" is unacceptable and to refer to the years of the first decade as simply "one", "two", or "three" would be incomprehensible. The solution has always been to use the term aught as, "We are now living in aught nine ('09)." This word has a negative variant, naught, which is the actual source of this sense of today's word (see Word History).

In Play: Be careful not to confuse this Good Word with the auxiliary verb, ought: "I ought to have naught to say to him since his release from prison back in aught one ('01)." In a more positive vein, we may also say, "Has she aught to offer a poor lonely fellow like me?" when we mean "anything".

Word History: Today's is as authentic an English word as ever there was. It comes from Old English á "ever" + with (wight) "creature, thing," literally "ever a thing", pretty close to "everything". The word's meaning migrated to its antonym (from "all" to "nothing") via reanalysis, when some people mistook "a naught" for "an aught", drawing the line between the two words where it shouldn't be. This mistake led us to the word naughty. Its original meaning was "having naught, poor", back when poor folk were assumed to be bad. (We have naught but gratitude for Leonard Pelletier for aught he lent us in suggesting this Good Word.)

[Slava]

English has a peculiar way of expressing years, for example 1923 = nineteen (hundred) twenty-three. All other non-Germanic Indo-European languages use thousand, as in one thousand nine hundred and twenty-three.

Query to speakers of other languages: What is your language's take on the "and" in the quoted bit above? Russian, the only other language I know, does not use "and" here. It would be, "one thousand nine hundred twenty-three."

I'm old enough to have been taught in school how to write a check. Very specifically, we were told the "and" does not belong there.

Other than English, does any language use "and" in numbers of this sort?

[Stargzer]

I don't claim to speak French, but it uses 'and' in the numbers 21, 31, 41, 51, 61, and 71 (from french.about.com):

20 vingt
21 vingt et un (twenty and one)
22 vingt-deux
23 vingt-trois

30 trente
31 trente et un (thirty and one)
32 trente-deux

40 quarante
41 quarante et un (forty and one)

50 cinquante
51 cinquante et un (fifty and one)

60 soixante
61 soixante et un (sixty and one)
62 soixante-deux
63 soixante-trois

70 soixante-dix (sixty-ten)
71 soixante et onze (sixty and eleven)
72 soixante-douze (sixty-twelve)
73 soixante-treize (sixty-thirteen)

BUT:

80 quatre-vingts (four-twenties)
81 quatre-vingt-un (four-twenties-one--notice no 'and')
82 quatre-vingt-deux (four-twenties-two)
83 quatre-vingt-trois

There is no word for "eighty" in standard French,* instead 80 is quatre-vingts, literally four-twenties (think "four-score"). 81 is quatre-vingt-un (four-twenty-one), 82 is quatre-vingt-deux (four-twenty-two), and so on, all the way up to 89.

80 quatre-vingts (four-twenties)
81 quatre-vingt-un (four-twenties-one)
82 quatre-vingt-deux (four-twenties-two)
83 quatre-vingt-trois
84 quatre-vingt-quatre
85 quatre-vingt-cinq
86 quatre-vingt-six
87 quatre-vingt-sept
88 quatre-vingt-huit
89 quatre-vingt-neuf

There's no word for ninety either, so you continue using quatre-vingt and adding from ten. 90 is quatre-vingt-dix (four-twenty-ten), 91 is quatre-vingt-onze (four-twenty-eleven), etc.

90 quatre-vingt-dix (four-twenties-ten)
91 quatre-vingt-onze (four-twenties-eleven--no 'and')
92 quatre-vingt-douze (four-twenties-twelve)
93 quatre-vingt-treize (four-twenties-thirteen)
94 quatre-vingt-quatorze
95 quatre-vingt-quinze
96 quatre-vingt-seize
97 quatre-vingt-dix-sept
98 quatre-vingt-dix-huit
99 quatre-vingt-dix-neuf (four-twenties-nineteen)

In French, 100 to 999 work just like in English - just say how many hundreds and then add the other numbers. Note that when cent is at the end of the number, it takes an s, but when it's followed by another number, the s is dropped.

100 cent
101 cent un
125 cent vingt-cinq

200 deux cents
201 deux cent un
243 deux cent quarante-trois

1,000+ are also similar to English, but there are a few things to note:
•The separator is a period or space, rather than a comma (learn more)
•Mille never takes an s
•When reciting a long number, you can pause to take a breath at the separator (after mille, million, or milliard)
1,000 mille - 1 000 or 1.000
2,000 deux mille - 2 000 or 2.000
2,500 deux mille cinq cents - 2 500 or 2.500
10,498 dix mille quatre cent quatre-vingt-dix-huit - 10.498 or 10 498

1,000,000 un million
2,000,000 deux millions
3,800,107 trois millions huit cent mille cent sept - 3.800.107 or 3 800 107

a billion un milliard


Pronunciation note

The consonants at the end of the French numbers cinq, six, huit, and dix are pronounced when at the end of a sentence or in front of a vowel. However, they drop the final sound when followed by a word beginning with a consonant (such as cent, mille, million, mois, or livres). For example, huit is normally pronounced [weet] and huit élèves is [wee tay lehv], but 800 is pronounced [wee sa(n)].

There is no example given for 121, but I believe it would be "cent vingt-et-un."

On a side note, the formation of the numbers 70 (soixante-dix [sixty-ten]) through 99 (quatre-vingt-dix-neuf [four-twenties-nineteen]) reminds of expressions like "forty-'leven" as in the song "Grandma's Featherbed" by Jim Conner, with the best known version done by John Denver (first verse and chorus below):

Grandma's Feather Bed by Jim Connor
Lyrics (C) Cherry River Music Company

When I was a little bitty boy
Just up off-a floor
We used to go down to Grandma's house
Every month end or so
We had chicken pie and country ham
And homemade butter on the bread
But the best darn thing about Grandma's house
Was her great big feather bed

It was nine feet high and six feet wide
Soft as a downy chick
It was made from the feathers of forty 'leven geese
Took a whole bolt of cloth for the tick
It'd hold eight kids, four hound dogs
And a piggy we stole from the shed
We didn't get much sleep but we had a lot of fun
On Grandma's feather bed

...

[Stargzer]

Getting back to 'aught,' the first time I remember hearing the word was in reference to the 30-06 ("thirty-aught-six" or "thirty-ott-six") Springfield cartridge used in the M1903 Springfield and M1917 Enfield Rifles, the M1917 and M1918 Machine Guns, the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and the M-1 Garrand rifle, among others.

I've heard "Thirty-aught-six" referring to the M1917 Springfield as well, calling it after the ammunition it used.