Learn English – Why do we not say “tens of”

phrases

We say 'hundreds of', 'thousands of', 'millions of', even 'tens of thousands of', but not 'tens of'. The usual expression is 'dozens of'. Does anyone know why?

Best Answer

Counting in 12s is a lot older than 1000s or millions. The traditional units based on 12 and 60 go back to the Babylonians, while 1000s mostly date back to the C18 metric system.

Indians also count in lakhs (100,000) and Crore (10,000,000)