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Some Ideas on Using Dozenals.

I came across the websites of the British and American Dozenal societies while I was
writing a blog on base 12 finger counting. One of the reasons that quantities of twelve are useful
is that it has a greater number of factors. It can be divided in 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s or 6s. For this reason
many physical objects are still sold in fractions or multiples of a dozen. These can be arranged
into compact packaging such as 2 x 3, 3 x 4 or 4 x 6. Many of us actually deal in dozens without
really noticing it. Dozenal counting has existed in parallel to other number systems for hundreds
of years. A little practice in the use of base twelve allows one to not just count in dozens but
perform arithmetic with them. Below is a dozenal multiplication table which can also assist in
you in division. The characters and are explained on the next page.

Dozenal counting is an interesting topic but before I proceed some clarifications are in
order.
Some of the articles about dozenal counting you will find on the web are quite old and
the author will often champion the imperial measurement system or rant against currency
decimalization. Comments such as the metric system is unworkable are clearly foolish when a big
chunk of the worlds population has been using it successfully for hundreds of years. In the UK
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many people easily switch between the systems as needed. It is quite feasible in informal
situations to describe something as about seven inches long and 6mm thick. It is worth remembering
that the imperial system was not actually dozenal. An engineer friend of mine observed that the
imperial measurement he used the most was 16th of an inch, allowing him to work in
progressive halvings. Like many British workers he is adept at switching between imperial and
metric measurements as needed. As long as units are clearly stated this is not a problem. Many
American imperial measurements differ considerably from the British so the imperial system was
hardly a consistent standard. A pint of beer in the UK is 25% larger than an American pint! As a
scientist I appreciate the SI metric system for a number of reasons. The direct relationship
between grams and Molars is useful when making solutions. It is also useful to know that at
standard temperature and pressure one gram of water occupies a space of one cubic centimetre
and contains one millilitre or 1,000 microlitres. In dozenal this would be 64` microlitres, not
such a useful figure! On the other hand, when I count up the tubes I am using it is most
convenient to arrange them in dozens or half-dozens. Metric and dozenal both have a place in
the modern word.
I was quite young when the UK decimalized its currency so never attained the
mathematical skills for readily dealing in sd that earlier generations had. I will observe that
other than there being twelve pence in a shilling this system was not dozenal. There were twenty
shillings or 240 pence in a pound/sovereign. A guinea was 21 shillings or 252 pence!
I dont believe dozenal counting will replace decimal. What is possible is for the two
systems to exist in parallel, as they have done for most of history. For this to be practical some
refinements in notation and terminology would be welcome.
The positional number system means that twelve in base twelve is written 10 and that
twelve twelves would be 100. For this to work ten and eleven need to be represented by single
characters. Some webpages follow the same conventions as hexadecimal so ten is A and eleven
is B. Using letters can be confusing so the Dozenal Society of America used an for ten
and for eleven, with * for ten and # for eleven as keypad equivalents. is easy to
understand since this is similar to the Roman numeral for ten. On the other hand is also
used for many other mathematical applications so my preference is for the Dozenal Society of
Great Britains use of for ten and for eleven. looks a bit like a T for ten and
an E for eleven. Below are the symbols suggested for use with calculator displays.

Secondly, a simple way to tell if a number is dozenal (base 12) or decimal (base 10) needs
to be adopted. For example, 52 may be read as fifty two or five dozen and two. Use of subscripts
such as 4312 is fiddly and tedious. A paper on the American Dozenal webpage marks dozenal
numbers with a semicolon immediately after them. Unfortunately the semicolon already has
other mathematical applications.
The British Dozenal society has apparently devoted considerable discussion on
alternatives to the decimal point for fractional dozenal numbers. Among the various symbols
suggested is the backquote or grave accent (`) as a duodecimal point. Thus 63`4 is six dozen
and three and a third. The backquote can also serve to identify whole dozenal numbers. Twelve
in dozenal can therefore written 10`. For whole numbers between zero and eleven in dozenal
such marking is optional but should be included where ambiguity may exist.
Dozenal fractionals are particularly interesting to me. 0`1 in dozenal is one-twelfth and
0`6 is six-twelfths or a half. 0`3 and 0`9 are a quarter and three-quarters while 0`4 and 0`8 are a
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third and two-thirds. 0`2 and 0` are one-sixth and five-sixths. Working in fractions/fractionals
in dozenals is therefore relatively easy since the most commonly used fractions are non-recurring
numbers. Incidentally an eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second and sixty-fourth are respectively 0`16,
0`09, 0`046 and 0`023.
Following on from notation is terminology. How can you say a number to make it clear
that you are using dozenals rather than decimals? For whole numbers of twelve or less this is not
a problem since the names and values are the same, even if the symbols differ. In many fields
dealing in dozens is already commonplace. You might say There are three dozen and five eggs left.
The meaning is clear even to listeners that have never heard of dozenals or base 12. There seems
little need to change this existing terminology and reinvent the wheel. 11` is a dozen and one,
62` is six dozen and two, ` is eleven dozen and ten and so on. If English is not your
native language you may find this system simpler than using the unique names for the various
multiples of ten and -teen numbers.
There is a simple trick for multiplying by 12. Double the number and then add the result
to the original number with a nought added. Hence 13 dozen = 13 x 12 = 26 + 130 = 156. We
already have a common term for 122/144/100`: a gross (pro. grohs). The 13 dozen used in
the example is not actually dozenal and the dozenal equivalent would be one gross and a
dozen or 110`. Therefore there are six gross, eleven dozen and four microlitres in a millilitre!
It is for numbers of 123/1000` or higher that terminology needs to be settled. Terms
such as grand, great gross or grand gross are not really satisfactory and in some cases can
be confused with terms for a thousand. Dozen-gross is logical for 123 and implies 124 is a
gross-squared. This system soon becomes cumbersome, however. In the SI system names tend
to progress in powers of three. In one direction we have kilo, mega and giga etc and in the other
milli, micro and nano. Likewise, higher number names in English tend to change in threes. We
have the progression tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands,
millions, ten millions, hundred millions. The logic of the system then breaks down with thousand
millions being billions and million millions being either billions or trillions!
One suggestion I have is to use a set of names inspired by the binary prefix system. 123 is
sometimes called a zagier (pro. tsagiir) and an alternate system using this is also shown. Hence:-

121 10` 12 One dozen One dozen

122 100` 144 One gross One gross
123 1,000` 1728 One kidoz One zagier
126 1,000,000` 2,985,984 One medoz One bizagier
129 1,000,000,000` 5,159,780,352 One gidoz One terzagier
1212 1,000,000,000,000` 8,916,100,448, 256 One tedoz One kwaterzagier

The intermediate numbers are formed logically. 124 would be dozen kidoz or dozen
zagier, 125 gross kidoz or gross zagier and 1210 dozen gidoz or dozen terzagier.
Alternately these prefixes could be used with other endings, for example kizen, mezen,
kidozen etc. A case can be made for using the more phonetic spellings of grohs and tsagiir
for dozenal numbers. Numbers of less than one are identified by the term ungkia derived
from a Roman term for a twelfth. For example 0`4 ungkia, 0`58 ungkia or 0`26 ungkia.
Phil West
26th November 2015.