Nineteen Hundred Four-Score and Fourteen -- A Funny Misunderstanding

My son Andrew has had an ongoing problem with his stomach, so on Thursday we took him in the afternoon to see the doctor. The doctor ordered an analysis that required us to take a sample to a medical lab, so on Friday morning I found myself standing in a long line waiting to drop off the sample and pay for the service. I had the paper that the doctor had given me, which had most of the relevant information on it, so I was hoping not to have to say much of anything. And mostly that was the case. But the one thing I did have to say lead to a funny misunderstanding.

French has a funny way of counting after you get to sixty. There is no "seventy"; 70 is represented as "sixty-ten." There is no "eighty"; 80 is represented as "four-twenty," the same structure as in the famous "four-score and seven years ago" phrase in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. All numbers from 80 to 99 are formed by using "four-twenty" and the appropriate number from 1 to 19; "ninety-five" is thus "four-twenty-fifteen," which raises the additional problem for the new French speaker of having to deal with the "teen" numbers in addition.

So I was in line, and I had handed her the paper, and I had spelled Andrew's first and last name so she could input it into the computer, and then she asked me for his year of birth. OK, I told myself, you've been here for three months, you've taken scores of French lessons (yeah, that was a nice little insertion there, wasn't it?), just slow down and think and you'll get it. Andrew was born in 1994 ... that's dix-neuf cent (nineteen hundred) quartre-vingt (four-twenty) quatorze (fourteen). That's it! So I start to say it to the lady: "Dix-neuf cent quarte-vingt ..."

"Non," the lady said, in the most affirmative way you could ever say "no," with a slight shake of her head. OK, I thought, I thought I said it right, but maybe I've screwed something up, it's morning after all and maybe the coffee hasn't fully kicked in. Parse it again ... yeah, I think that's right ... so once again I start to give her the date: "Dix-neuf cent quarter-vingt ..."

"Non," she says again, this time more firmly (if that is possible), again shaking her head, no doubt thinking, "Idiot American." But if she were thinking that, she hid it well, as she politely asked me (in French, of course, I don't think she knew English), "Would you write it for me?"

She handed me a paper and a pen and I wrote out the year "1994." I handed it back to her and she looked up at me and said:

"Oh, this is not for you?"

"No," I said, "it is for my son."

She laughed, and I said to her, "Oh, now I understand!" For me, any birth year in the 1900s beginning with "four-twenty" was certainly and obviously wrong. Her "nons" weren't due to my poor French number skills, but to a misunderstanding about who the patient was. A small victory, but I will take it.