I assume, though, that one can count those "three days ago" as "today, yesterday, the day before" and hence be referring to "the day before yesterday" even if the term is derived etymologically from "three days ago".
Yes - that makes sense.
tons of other derivatives, especially if you include arabic and aramaic cognates 'tlat'.
like clover (though originally it referred to fenugreek, another three-leafed plant) is 'tiltan'.
A meshulash is a triangle.
A shalshelet is a chain (three is the first number that signifies multiplicity. in latin-derived words, 3 and up can be connoted by the prefix 'poly'='many'). could also be that it was a twine of at least three cords, since 'a triple thread doesn't easily snap'. or perhaps there's a better explanation (esp. since it's often interchangable w/ 'sharsheret' in Rabbinic Hebrew).
I haven't found a connection between שלשלת and שלש. Doesn't mean someone doesn't discuss it...
I'm looking forward to getting through all 10 numbers on your fun site. You may wish to check out http://zompist.com/numbers.shtml who lists these numbers in thousands of languages.
שלשלת is also an infrequent טעם in reading the torah. To my knowledge, it appears three times in the chumash, and is usually sung with the same series of notes repeated three times. ... but I would think the name comes from "chain" and the adoption of the triple-sound relates to its name.
Phil - thanks for the helpful link!
Joel - still looking for any source that discusses the origins of the teamim...
Regarding the masculine/feminine endings switching on numbers: Note that it's the same thing that happens with second-person singular past-tense verbs:
Ata achalta, at achalt. Both the pronouns and the verbs end in -a for masculine, but not for feminine.
Whereas for most nouns and adjectives, and for third-person past-tense verbs, it's the reverse:
Yeled katan halach, yalda ketana halcha.
Clearly the pattern here is more complex than people generally assume.
The Romans also used the inclusive way of counting dates: a.d. iii kal. ian., literally, the third day before the Kalends of January (ante diem III Kalends Ianuaris), actually referred to December the 30th.
And, just to pedant, the note שלשלת appears five, not three times in the Torah (four of which in the book of Genesis), but it does indeed go up and down three times.
Commenting by HaloScan
