After having awakened in the middle of the night, one of us (who
shall remain nameless) started thinking about etymology while
trying to get to sleep. We have some great ideas in that state,
but we never want to turn on the light and write them down as
we're afraid it will awaken us even more and we'll never get
back to sleep. So these brilliant ideas are usually gone by the
next morning. However, for some reason, the question of the
etymology of eleven and twelve stuck. Why those words decided to
present themselves at that early hour of the morning, though, is
a mystery! It was nowhere near 11:00 or 12:00 when the words
were occupying the mind of the one of us who was awake (it was
closer to 3:00 or 4:00 am!). What's up with eleven and twelve?
They bear little resemblance to their brothers and sisters
thirteen through nineteen. The etymological constructions of the
latter are pretty obvious: a single digit number (excluding
zero, one or two) plus ten. So thirteen is "three [and] ten".
Nineteen is "nine [and]