DAVID MARCUS: Turns out, '6-7' has a history that goes back to medieval times

It is simply a improvement that has swept the nation, seemingly coming retired of obscurity successful our country’s mediate schools. The bewildering operation "6-7" has been amusing kids and annoying parents for months now, but successful fact, this look dates to the 14th period and is 1 of modern English’s oldest.

When my 15-year-old lad patiently tried to explicate to maine that "6-7" meant nothing, but was conscionable thing you accidental arsenic a gag erstwhile you perceive the numbers together, portion making a weighing motion with your hands, I asked him if it meant the aforesaid arsenic "being astatine sixes and sevens?"

(Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images)

He didn’t cognize what that look meant, and to beryllium just it is alternatively arcane. I astir apt work excessively overmuch PG Wodehouse, but it got maine reasoning that possibly this 6-7 happening didn’t really popular up retired of nowhere. Maybe it is very, precise old, I thought.

Turns out, that was a bully instinct.

BUY YOURSELF A LIFE-SIZED T-REX AND SIX OTHER ABSOLUTELY NUTS STORIES FROM SEPTEMBER

The archetypal usage of "6-7" dates backmost to the 1300s which is astir arsenic aged arsenic modern English gets. It referred to a dice crippled called Hazard that would yet make into what we cognize arsenic craps.

In the game, a subordinate would telephone retired the fig helium was trying to sprout for, oregon make, with 2 six-sided dice. Five, 8 and 9 were the astir apt results. Six and seven, gamblers rapidly discovered either done mathematics oregon experience, offered little likelihood and hence little accidental of winning.

Several of the most-searched slang presumption revolve astir looks and attractiveness, similar "mogging," "chopped." (iStock)

From past on, six and seven, taken together, became everlastingly associated with hazard and worry. It tin beryllium recovered successful the works of Chaucer, and has marched rather steadily down done the centuries.

BOOK BUMMER: WHY READING IS IN DEEP DECLINE

Almost 300 years later, successful 1595, William Shakespeare would usage the look successful his play Richard II, with the duke of York uttering, "I should to Plashy too, but clip volition not permit. All is uneven, and everything is near astatine six and seven."

Once again, successful Shakespeare’s usage six and 7 mean risk, interest and confusion.

Over the adjacent fewer centuries, the operation would go plural and popularized arsenic "being astatine sixes and sevens," meaning being disquieted oregon confused, arsenic in, "My cheque is precocious and my rent is due, I americium astatine sixes and sevens implicit it."

DICTIONARY.COM DECLARES '6-7' WORD OF THE YEAR

The dormant giveaway that this latest iteration of 6-7 is related to its medieval precursor is the weighing question with the hands. It says visually, "it mightiness beryllium this, oregon it mightiness beryllium that," it’s confusing, unclear, a substance of chance.

What does the endurance of this symbol, this look that has been with our autochthonal lingua since its commencement truly mean? What tin it archer us, beyond being conscionable a small amusive information of history?

A double-digit operation acceptable the societal media sphere ablaze among teens successful 2025, leaving parents and teachers befuddled -- and present it has officially been crowned Dictionary.com's "Word of the Year": 67. But adjacent the enactment that unveiled the winning connection -- pronounced "six-seven" and ne'er "sixty-seven" -- admitted it was not precisely definite astir its meaning.  (Chris Delmas/AFP)

It tells america that we are overmuch much intimately linked intellectually to those who spoke our connection 700 years agone than we think, that we astir ne'er invent, we astir ever get oregon repurpose, arsenic Shakespeare, our top writer, did himself.

TEST YOURSELF ON THE GEN Z SLANG OF 2025: CAN YOU DECODE ‘HUZZ’ AND ‘GLAZING’?

It was the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who suggested that connection is not simply the vas of our thoughts, it is besides the driver. Here we person the English connection stubbornly demanding for centuries that these 2 numbers person a peculiar meaning.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

This is wherefore it is captious to work aged books and to marque kids work aged books. They aren’t really old. They are successful fact, timeless successful arsenic overmuch arsenic their contributions go indelible. We recognize what we ourselves are saying overmuch amended erstwhile we recognize those who said it first.

So, the adjacent clip your kid starts giggling and saying '6-7,' conscionable ideate them connected the old-timey streets of Elizabethan London doing it, due to the fact that the radical determination and past would cognize precisely what it means, adjacent amended than we do.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The past of the English speaking radical is overmuch shorter than it feels, we are overmuch much intimately related to those agelong gone than we recognize. 

So, arsenic we march into the aboriginal of artificial intelligence, and brave caller worlds, fto america remember, we find our existent meaning, our existent selves and what we are, successful the past, not successful the future, and conscionable arsenic with '6-7,' the past volition ever find a way.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DAVID MARCUS