dactylonomy

[prettygoodword]

Should have run this on Friday -- ah, well.


dactylonomy (dak-til-oh-NOH-mee) - n., the art of counting on one's fingers.


Different cultures use different fingering systems for enumerating just up to ten -- and then there are various systems for counting and adding/subtracting after that. Fun stuff. Wikipedia's article is not great, but is still interesting. Coined from Greek daktulos, finger + –nomia, law, used in the sense of an area of knowledge.

---L.

Comments

[flwyd]

I like the Chinese dactylonomic system for representing numbers one to ten since it only uses one hand, so you can hold the object you want to buy in the other hand.

[prettygoodword]

Yes, that was useful in a Beijing market. Didn't get to use it more than the once, though -- elsewhere, especially in Guangzhou, we were enough in tourist districts that everyone started with English with us.