Score

#usage #idiom #etymology Published: 2021-12-20

English word “score” has a wide range of meanings. As a Japanese, probably the easiest to remember would be “the number of points in games or sports”, since we have a general katakata word スコア in this sense (pronounced like score). People who are familiar with terms related to computing may also know the meaning as “a line”, “a mark”, or “a notch”, from the word “underscore” (the symbol “_”).

Anyway, there are so many meanings that I cannot cover them all here, but among them, I found it interesting that this word can also mean “twenty”. Its etymology is uncertain, but the OED says:

Presumably from the practice, [..] of counting orally from 1 to 20, and making a ‘score’ [..] or notch on a stick, before proceeding to count the next twenty.¹

There is a phrase “three score and ten” or its variants², which literally means “seventy” and is used as “the expected number of years in a lifetime”. This may not be a good expression today, given that the life expectancy in Canada and the U.S. as of 2020 is around “fourscore”.

In addition, it almost goes without saying that the word score can be used as an indefinite number as well (“scores of …”).

By the way, this system of counting numbers based on 20 is called “vigesimal”³⁴. This word comes from the Latin word “vīgintī” that means “twenty”. French word “vingt” means “twenty”, which comes from the same root, and French partly uses a vigesimal system (for numbers from 70 to 99).

---