"הילד סופר שלוש חולצות."
Translation:The boy counts three shirts.
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You may find it interesting that e.g. the Polish transcription is different: "hajeled sofer szalosz chulcot". We only need one letter (c) for צ, no need of "tz" or "ts".
What's the connection between סופר and ספר? Did ספר originally mean an accounting book and later generalize to all books or something?
1252
No. Accounting books are a modern thing. The word ספר is Biblical. It probably came from scribes who were copying the Tora, they had to count every letter, to make sure it was perfectly copied. So, basically סופר is both an author (scribe) and a counter (person).
According to Wiktionary, the first Hebrew word of this root is ספר /sefer/, borrowed from Akkadian (different vowels) where it meant "a written message", "letter" if you will. From there it was used in making lists, hence counting etc.
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TIL: מספרה and מספריים are something completely different... There goes the idea that all words with the same root are related. Anyone care to explain where that came from?
If you mean that מספרה and מספריים are unrelated to one another, than that's false - they are very obviously related (from an Aramaic root, says Wiktionary). If you mean that they are unrelated to /sefer/ and /safar/, true. There are many pairs of roots that have the same three consonants and unrelated meaning and etymology, usually borrowed to Hebrew at different times.
Why isn't it written as שלושה? Is חוצות feminine and wouldn't the number need to be feminine also?
Because חולצה is a feminine noun and you propose a masculine form of the numeral.
