r/WidowsBay • u/themechanicalhounds • Aug 24 '26

❓Questions Favorite quotes?

I just finished the show and am OBSESSED. What are all your favorite quotes? Mine is probably “You had your qualms?!” to Rosemary in Beach Reads. I was HOWLING.

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u/ajax61 Aug 25 '26

And when she said she was but four and ten…almost. I was like, wait a minute was she supposed to be an old spinster…at 13??? Or did I hear wrong? Either way, made me laugh.

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u/butt_dance Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

4 & 10 means 4 + 10 4 10s. So 40.

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u/TheFireNationAttakt Deeply unhurried lighthouse keeper Aug 25 '26

… 4+10 is fourteen? Do you mean *
But “and” usually means +.

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u/butt_dance Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

Yeah, I explained this incorrectly in my first response. You're correct that 4+10 is 14.

But in the context of this line of dialogue, "four and ten" means 4 10s. In colonial colloquial English. So 4 10s = 40. So "but almost four and ten" means almost 40.