Virgins on the ridiculous

[undyingking]

I guess you're all probably familiar, if only by repute, with the traditional song that starts:
Four-and-twenty virgins came down from Inverness;
And when the ball was over, there were four-and-twenty less.
It will not have escaped the sharp-eyed, though, that the second line contains what some consider a grammatical solecism

Comments

[bluedevi]

I apologise for the crudeness, but since no one else has contributed yet:

Four and twenty virgins came down from Inverclyde
And when the ball was over they had four and twenty rides.

[undyingking]

Mm, maybe everyone's out picketing Vodafone... (or maybe just ignorning this as beneath their contempt)

This is a good one, very much in the spirit of the original!

[bluedevi]

And and!

Four and twenty virgins came down from Aberdeen
And now the ball is over, there's no virgins to be seen.

[undyingking]

Ah, good shift of tense.

[undyingking]

(Four and twenty virgins came down from Aberdeen;
The Earl O'Moray caught them with the Lady Mondegreen.)

[ninthcouncil]

Four and twenty virgins came down from Aberdour,
But once the ball had started they were gone within the the hour. ;)

I think it rhymes as long as both lines are pronounced consistently...

[undyingking]

We need a native Highlander to record a reading of each of these, ideally.

Four and twenty virgins came down from Aberfeldy,
But that required a rhyming that was rather unwi-eldy.

[fractalgeek]

That is pedantary of the highest order, getting in the way of one of the truly well known english vernacular lyrics.

You should be ashamed of yourself :-)

[undyingking]

Don't blame me, blame the people who leapt all over me last time I posted about this particular pedantry!

[fractalgeek]

Ouch! And you went back?

I think it is one where live usage is different to the rules (and not just when being "sloppy"): Even for countables, "less" often sounds better to me, particularly for a relative comparison.

[undyingking]

Mm, good point re relative comparison, I think in practice 'less' would be almost always be preferred there.

(Reworded because it kept coming out like a joky point about wanting less relatives. Which was not my intent, although on another occasion it might have been.)

[jackfirecat]

Four-and-twenty came up from Brighton
And when the ball was over, four-and-twenty went on