“Docenal! What’s that?” you may exclaim, "there’s no such word! ”Well, perhaps not; at least you may not find it in an English Dictionary at present, but it has the makings of a good word all the same. “Duodecimal” would perhaps have been more generally understood, but, apart from the two unnecessary syllables, "duodecimal” seems to emphasize the fact that twelve is ten and two, whereas we would rather have you regard ten as two less than a dozen, the dozen-the “round dozen ”-being the natural and more convenient unit of numeration. Morgan E. Yeatman
Publish Date – 1 July 1923
PART V. Military implications of the term “Engineer” prior to the 19th Century. Doubtless the cave dweller had his arts of fortification, and those savagts who erected defences of wicker screens were in very truth the prototypes of the engineer. Specialisation had already set in wherever groups of men were set apart to maintain and repair the wicker defences. E. Fiander Etchells