Three ones. One Hundred and eleven. That must mean something in numerology. One hundred plus eleven more. I learned the Gettysburg address when I was a child. Four score. I didn't know what score meant. It means twenty. So twenty times four. A total of eighty. It was more poetic to say four score and seven than to say eighty seven. I admire that. The poetry. Go Lincoln!
from wiki:
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English score, skore, schore, from Old English scoru (“notch; tally; score”), from Old Norse skor, from Proto-Germanic *skurō (“incision; tear; rift”), which is related to *skeraną (“to cut”).
Cognate with Icelandic skora, Swedish skåra, Danish skår. Related to shear. (For twenty: The mark on a tally made by drovers for every twenty beasts passing through a tollgate.)
So turns out- it was the tally of twenty beasts passing through a tollgate. Not clear what beasts. Not sure what tollgate. Probably cattle. But would apply I think to all beasts. Llama, horse, cat, dog, even squirrel. Not sure if there is a size requirement for beast. Or type of foot. Just a number. Four. That probably means something in numerology too but I am stepping around that rabbit hole. And rabbits of course have four legs. And once again ixney on the rabbit down said hole.
from wiki: From Middle English beeste, beste, from Old French beste (French bête), from Latin bēstia (“animal, beast”); many cognates – see bēstia.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
beast (plural beasts)
Any animal other than a human; usually only applied to land vertebrates, especially large or dangerous four-footed ones. quotations ▼
A person who behaves in a violent, antisocial or uncivilized manner.
So to be more specific any animal other than human especially large or dangerous four footed ones. General to specific. Danger. Somewhere there is danger. But not always. A bovine is generally not dangerous but when we were ranchers as children we walked with sticks to guide the large bovines. The cows and the stubborn bulls. It was mostly quiet (except the dehorning and a lot of other pretty violent stuff) but my brothers and I saw two bulls fight and destroy a working pen. We tried to hit them with our sticks to stop the fighting. Mostly to save the pen because we knew we would have to rebuild it our selves.
Our sticks were inconsequential. Toothpicks slapped against armadillos. They fought until exhausted.
then stood facing each other. Breathing heavily. Drooling. Uninjured. The world radiated around them. The spent fury settling back into the prairie grass now trampled in anger.
The pen destroyed. We brothers stood in awe.
Those two bulls. Herford both. Magnificent in their spent rage.
THEY were beasts.
far to go
acrylic on canvas
twenty four inches by twenty four inches
July 1, 2020
