Quattuordecimal

But perhaps the most surprising “most-needed additions” of this kind are “teddera, peddera, pimp, and yan-a-dick,” which are said to be numerals used for counting sheep. It is not quite clear what numbers these additions displace or whether the shepherd has really adopted a “quattuor-decimal” system.

Reinterpret these symbols as the digits (!) in a quattuordecimal number system, i.e. a number system based on 14 in the same way that the decimal system is based on 10.

“If my memory serves me, one of your predecessors used the same terminology several millennia ago when he wanted to check some equations he had developed dealing with sub-nuclear fission. When he went back over his calculations to see if he could find out what had gone wrong, he found he’d dropped a quattuordecimal point. But by then it was too late. One of our planets was missing.”

Talk about a bumpy night, “La La Land” is now the only movie to be nominated for 14 Oscars and not win Best Picture. (Don’t ask me why I’m smiling.) But it does have something over the first film to receive decatessariple (quattuordecimal?) nominations, “All About Eve.”

[…] 5-8 introduces a hint of melismatic complexity, inserting into its duple meter a series of triplets and a melismatic quattuordecimal (14-note) figure.