bobharvey wrote:

snip

I recall an article in Lincolnshire Life about this around 0.45
centuries ago, which later appeared too in Essex Countryside. My
grandfather (an east coast man) used Yan, Tan, Tether etc. to count
turns of rope or rag marks on a depth line. It is now known
univerally as 'the method of counting sheep', but I suspect was
applied more widely.

http://www.ramshornstudio.com/lincoln_sheep.htm suggests that
quantities up to 20 would be held in the head, and then tallied on a
notched stick. Such notched sticks have been found in Roman remains,
and allegedly back to the iron age.

It is a fascinating subject - I have heard on the BBC that they may be
the only surviving iron age words in the language. Certainly it is
interesting that they seem to work in base 20, like most european
languages (french, for example, has distinct words like quinze, but
goes for vingt et un above 20. Just as dutch has vijftien, for
example). The "correct" way to use the 5-barred-gate method of
tallying is in rows of 4 gates, or 20s. There does seem to be
residual evidence of base 20 being as important as base 10 before
scientific consistency got going.

One politially incorrect theory is that women count in base 20 and men count
in base 21.

.... and in Norfolk and Linconshire they count in base 22 ......

....Yo - gimme six!....