Why Is It ‘Eleven, Twelve’ Instead of ‘Oneteen, Twoteen’?
(via mental_floss) English number words are pretty logical after a point. From twenty-one to ninety-nine, the same principle applies: you say the tens place followed by the units place. But the teens are different. Not only does the ten (which is where the word teen comes from) come after the units place (10+7 is not teen-seven but seventeen), eleven and twelve don’t fit in at all.
