Forty!

What?

Forty!

Fourteen or forty?

Forty!

Forty?

Yes! Forty!

How many of these conversations happen every day on earth? How many person-hours are spent every year distinguishing a "teen" from it's similar sounding multiple of ten? How many meetings are missed, how many legs are broken, how many lives are lost every year because, say, "fifteen" was heard as "fifty"?

Let's rename 13 through 19.

An obvious option:

eleven
twelve
teny-three
teny-four
teny-five
teny-six
teny-seven
teny-eight
teny-nine
twenty

That these follow a pattern similar to the other two-digit numbers is an added advantage. A disadvantage is that these names are not as sonically different from their counterparts in the twenties as one might hope (e.g., "teny-three" sounds a little too much like "twenty-three"). And the hyphens are bad, though of course they could be dropped at the cost of some lost regularity.

It's also probably true that "teny-two", "teny-one", and perhaps, "teny" would show up, invited or not. Regularity-wise, that's good, but the increased length, in terms of number of characters and number of syllables, is bad.

Another option:

eleven
twelve
thirtoon
fourtoon
fiftoon
sixtoon
seventoon
eightoon
ninetoon
twenty.

Advantage: Similarity to present system may make it easy to make the switch. Disadvantage: Similarity to present system may it difficult to make the switch.

One drawback of both of these systems (and the current one) is that a spoken number does not reveal it's identity until fairly late in it's pronunciation. We can't begin to know that "thirteen" or "thirtoon" are not "thirty" until we hear the "t" sound. We don't know that "teny-three" is not "teny-two" or some other "teny" until we hear the "th" sound.

We might want to look for a set of names where, as with "eleven", the series of sounds becomes unique early on, perhaps within the first two phonemes. It would be nice to maintain some relationship between the new names and the names of the corresponding single-digit numbers as well.

Eleven, twelve, trelve, frelve, filve, silve, spelve, elve... egleve? etelve? ???

Eleven, twelve, treven, freven, fiven (rhymes with given), skiven, seven... sevenen? svenen? septen? spaten? svetlana? seviche? ???

Eleven, twelve, trebutafuoco, frabutafuoco, fibutafuoco, sibutafuoco, sevebutafuoco, ebutafuoco, nibutafuoco, twenty.

So "butafuoco" works okay, but it's too long. And maybe regularity in the suffix isn't such a good thing. Maybe it would be worth the extra learning time to have each name be an island unto itself.

Eleven, twelve, thrixen, fruby, viffel, sheck, etc.

By the way, there's no reason to mourn "thirteen", "fourteen", etc. They won't die. They'll just escape the grunt work. "Administer fifteen milligrams adenosine" will sound silly, but when a jaunty, devil-may-care tone is wanted--"Hey chum-o, I will see you at the refreshment area in fifteen minutes"--our old friends the "teens" will be just the ticket. We can chalk up another one for English's renowned capacity for shades of meaning.

A renowned capacity enhanced, an embarrassing flaw expunged. It's win, win.

Addendum: The "toon" suffix won't work. It sounds too much like "two" (e.g., "fourtoon" sounds too much like "four two" or "forty-two"). Attention linguists, phoeneticians. What are you doing? Are you busy? Help out, would you? Here's a preliminary list of desirable qualities for the new names:

• None of the names sound too similar to
  • the names of other numbers
  • the names of other numbers combined (e.g., "fourtoon" too similar to "four two")
  • the names of letters
  • the names of common units of measurement. (eg., "fourtun" sounds too much like "four ton") .
• There is some relation between the new names and the corresponding names of the digits.
• There is some regularity with respect to the pattern used by the other two-digit numgers.
• The names aren't too long.
• The names aren't too short. (One syllable is probably okay only if there are lots of phonemes, as in "twelve".)
• The names sound vaguely like English.
• The names are easy to say.