Talk:At sixes and sevens

Added a brief line including Shakespeare's use of the expression. I put it in the paragraph regarding Chaucer since we know that Shakespeare read Chaucer, but it doesn't seem that there's any specific relation between the two usages. I merely thought it seemed relevant.

I don't think "There is also a story using this phrase as it's title, written by ~Gibah at gibah.deviantart.com" should be a part of this article. Aside from the lack of punctuation and the misuse of the contraction "it's", there is the obvious problem that, honestly, nobody reading an article about an expression cares that a little-known story is named after it. If anywhere on Wikipedia, this information should show up in a box saying "For the story of the same name, see At Sixes and Sevens (story)" - and that would only make sense if the story was important enough to be a Wikipedia article.

If, 124.180.198.48, you are indeed ~Gibah at deviantART, you ought to check out WP:NOT #2. I hope you are not intentionally using Wikipedia as a tool to expand your audience.

I'm reverting again because there is much more harm to be done to the quality of the article by having one inappropriate (my view) sentence present than by having one appropriate (presumably your view) but clearly non-critical sentence absent. Can we please leave the article in its original form until we've discussed this issue?

Pandas 23:01, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Anyone who has wrestled with a guitar fretboard might agree that the origin of the phrase might be musical. Chords are made up of three tones, basically, called a triad. They're fairly easy to learn. But once one tries to add extra tones, such as adding the sixth interval of the scale, or the seventh interval, one's fingers and patience are seriously challenged. Hence, one is flustered and frustrated, very much "at sixes and sevens".

I won't go to the mat over that theory, but another avenue of inquiry occurs to me upon reading in the article "to set on cinque and sice" from the game, hazard. Rather than a direct translation of numbers, might the expression derive from a rhyming or transliteration (if that's the term to use) of a different expression entirely? For example, everything in "apple pie order" derives, I was told, from the French "cap a pied", head to toe.

96.233.102.68 (talk) 02:09, 7 February 2008 (UTC)dadoben

I really do doubt the order of precedence among merchant companies gave rise to or increased popularity of this expression -- given how little excitement the situation generated outside the two companies. Thus it is a rather weak example of confusion or risk. If there had been a bloody feud yes. Obviously the common people might be have thrown in confusion if they had to announce these two companies - but I cannot think that the common people would very often have to deal with both companies formally at the same time. Probably only servants at some private clubs would have had this quandary.

Given the dates of first use, its more likely to be a reference to time of day between six and seven as sunset or dusk is when weather and bad navigation conditions occur. The 1400s would be when portable medieval clocks entered common life. Or, given the 1400s, perhaps a hole of golf as six or seven strokes is a lot.

However, I believe the dice game Hazard had been popular among UK travelers and sailors for hundreds of years before this expression. So unless scholars can show that Hazard suddenly became more popular I doubt it would interject a phrase at that point in its existence but not before.

Or perhaps a reference to nautical situation where a putative captain asked for the crew to sail within six or seven points of the wind (there are only 5 traditional points).

People in the UK do seem to have a long time special love of trivia in their wide gamut of quaint expressions. So no telling really where this came from.

69.23.124.142 (talk) 12:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

"given how little excitement the situation generated outside the two companies" I don't think you understand how big a deal this was in the fourteenth century. These were not just two companies as we understand the term today, but major trade guilds controlling particular aspects of trade in a major city. As for the Chaucer quotation predating the settlement of the dispute, that is irrelevant because the dispute went on for a long time before the enforced settlement, with street conflicts between the competing guilds.70.67.185.209 (talk) 04:58, 25 August 2021 (UTC) The two companies both received their royal charter in 1327, and therein lies the source of the troubles, because the date of charter would have established precedence. So it's highly likely that Chaucer would have known the expression by the later decades of the 1300's.70.67.185.209 (talk) 05:48, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

MARK FOR DELETION
This article is pretty good, but it appears to belong in the wiktionary, not in the wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mctavishisdead (talk • contribs) 03:20, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Chinese Example
I changed the Chinese example, which I don't think was totally inaccurate, but I think it was not very good. The original expression "乱七八糟" is translated as "at sixes and sevens" by www.mdbg.net, but both translate.google.com and www.nciku.com agree that "七上八下" is a better translation for that particular idiom, and both are more notable sources. "七上八下" is also the one I've heard, as popularized by the song by Jolin Tsai. Carychan (talk) 07:38, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I just checked on nciku and the translations (from the comprehensive section) it gives for the 2 phrases are:

七上八下: seven buckets coming up and eight buckets going down—be agitated; be perturbed

乱七八糟: at sixes and sevens; in a mess

In my view, the second phrase seems closer to the English meaning. I'm not based in China, so can't comment on what is used 'on the street', but the second phrase is also the one I have come across more frequently in the TV dramas I use for study practice with the context of things being confused or messy. I didn't want to revert another user's change, however, but wanted to point this out for consideration. Caskinner (talk) 14:12, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Poker
I've heard it may come from poker - that the 6 & 7 cards are neither assets for low or high hands —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.72.239.195 (talk) 01:07, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

"Al tres y al cuatro"
This chilean idiom doesn't really indicate something in a state of chaos. It is more an indication of mediocrity, which comes from the school grading system. It goes from 1 to 7, with 4.0 and above being a pass. So, "al tres y al cuatro" means that it's graded ranging from 3.0 to 4.9, which is from failing to just barely passing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 54.240.196.169 (talk) 21:39, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The same is true of several other idioms in that section, which have nil relevance - they simply use numbers, but the meaning is quite different. The English phrase has nothing to do with anyone telling porkies, for example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.21.4 (talk) 20:47, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Thirteen
Is there any connection with 6+7=13 and the bad connotation of the number 13? Surely, someone must have noticed this, if not to debunk it TomS TDotO (talk) 17:25, 21 October 2023 (UTC)