One, Two, Three, For

Fourty  Forty dollars and 00/100 cents. 

Four, fourteen, forty, four hundred, fourth. 

WHY is forty not spelled f-o-U-r-t-y?  I’m pretty sure if Forty could be a contestant on Wheel of Fortune, he’d like to buy a vowel. Ok, I know. There’s a rule for everything in the English language … but there are also exceptions to every stinking rule. Why can’t forty be the exception in this case? 

Google time! Today's query took me to a Yahoo! Answers forum (read, Pandora's Box of crazy answers and opinions).

WARNING: This little nugget triggered all kinds of thoughts and questions.

1. Sweet Lincoln's Mullet, John P ... you're a genius! You must have many leather bound books and your apartment must smell of rich mahogany. Oh, you're just blowin' smoke and pulled that explanation out of thin air? Well, it makes sense to me, my friend.
2. Which came first - the number '4' or the word 'four'? Or, 'for'?
3. When you use a number in formal documents, why do you have to spell out the number in parentheses, or vice versa? Was someone once confused when they saw the number? I mean, I'm all for having different options, (Sidenote: this is why we ladies  tend to  always over-pack our suitcases. Well, that, and we're indecisive.) but is it really necessary, other than for pronunciation's sake, to make a number into a word? Memo: Please bring 2 (two) forms of identification. 2? Oh, TWO! I thought you meant 9.You can't take the numbers away - could you really imagine doing math with words? Yikes!  Solve: Thirty-nine plus four. OK, thirty nine ... plus four, carry the U, is ... Forty-three ...(43).
4. Speaking of pronunciation ... to, too, and two. Why isn't "two" pronounced "t-woo", and why'd they pick a 'w' of all letters to be silent? The person who spelled bologna must have made that choice.
5. Are silent letters silent because they're deaf? Or, mute? Or, silent because they're sneaky and ninja-like?
6. Is your brain hurting yet? Watch this.
7. Apparently, the addition of the 'u' is supposed to change the pronunciation. If the proper way to say the 'ou' in four is supposed to make a different sound than the 'o-without-the-u' in for, I don't hear it (but I've also got a bit of a twang sometimes). People often pronounce 'for' as 'fer', and 'four' as 'for', due to laziness. Go ahead and practice that one.
8. If there is no other word that sounds like "forty", WHY can't you just make it "fourty" with a U?
9. OK John P, this is where your theory flaws. If sour is s-o-u-r, and four is f-o-u-r, why doesn't four sound like sour? Or vice versa - sour like four? Plus, there's no word sourty. Type that in Word and it will squiggle it red!
10. If vice versa means to reverse the order, what if you vice versa'd vice versa ... versa vice? Would that cancel the reverse and make it straightforward? Nothing in my mind right now is straightforward, so I guess you could kind of say it's in a state of vice versa (and sideways versa).
11. All of this talk about reversing makes me want to play Uno. Ha! What if Uno recalled every "Reverse" card and replaced them with "Vice Versa"?
12. Can we please just make an amendment to the Chronicles of Spelling and Grammar? I know these rules are etched in stone tablets and are kept in Bermuda, but can't you just add "Fourty" as an acceptable way to spell out 40? (That's the real reason why ships and planes disappear when they approach the Bermuda Triangle - they start their voyage in hopes of changing these Chronicles, but the second they pop up on the radar, the Lords of Language laugh at their petty attempts at reform and smite them into ashes. Just kidding. I totally made that up.)
13. Speaking of the Lords of Language, I'm pretty sure the one who made 'syllabi' the plural form of 'syllabus' suffered from a lisp. Just sayin'.

P.W. Did you know the number forty is the only number in the English language that is spelled in alphabetical order? Check it.

P.T. Maybe that's the real reason the 'U' is left out. Hmm!

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