Literary notes about twenty (AI summary)
The word “twenty” in literature is used with remarkable versatility, often serving as a precise count, a marker of time, or a measure of value that lends specificity to narrative details. In historical and military contexts, authors use “twenty” to indicate exact losses or military units, as seen when “twenty of his men fell into the hands of the enemy” ([1]) or when describing military strength in numbers ([2]). At the same time, “twenty” frequently designates spans of time—from the “twenty years” of diligent labor in collecting material ([3]) to the life-changing distance of “twenty years” apart ([4], [5]). Its use extends to everyday measures and transactions as well, from marking a precise time (“twenty minutes past eight” ([6])) to quantifying monetary amounts ([7], [8]). Even in more abstract, mathematical, or symbolic uses, such as in puzzles and religious texts ([9], [10]), “twenty” enhances both the factual and the metaphorical texture of a work, underscoring how a single numeral can carry multiple layers of meaning across diverse literary genres.
- Twenty of his men fell into the hands of the enemy.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. Grant - Fort Wood had in it twenty-two pieces of artillery, most of which would reach the nearer points of the enemy's line.
— from Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete by Ulysses S. Grant - Twenty years and more he labored in collecting his material.
— from Boswell's Life of Johnson by James Boswell - About twenty years after that great revolution, it was converted into a church and monastery, to receive the bones of St. Severinus.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - Ulysses is conducted by Eumaeus to the palace, where his old dog Argus acknowledges his master, after an absence of twenty years, and dies with joy.
— from The Odyssey by Homer - The cab stopped before the railway station at twenty minutes past eight.
— from Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne - Only one rod, sir; cost, only twenty dollars.
— from The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville - Twenty rupees a month.
— from Kim by Rudyard Kipling - We may thus select the four coins in one hundred ways, and the four removed may be arranged by permutation in twenty-four ways.
— from Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney - And I said: I see a volume flying: the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete
