Why "Four Score and Seven Years Ago"?

2014-11-24

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http://tomscott.com - http://twitter.com/tomscott - Lincoln's Gettysburg Address is one of the great moments of American history. There's a myth that he wrote it on the train to Gettysburg -- which isn't true -- but I want to dive into something a bit more linguistic. Those opening words: "four score and seven years ago": why do they sound so resonant? And where might you have heard something similar?