Tom Scott

Why "Four Score and Seven Years Ago"? (2014x91)

Air date: Nov 24, 2014

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?