I always chuckle when I pass this shop
Gross has become a word for disgusting, but in Swedish it means wholesale. In English, of course it denotes 144, though I am not sure how many people know that these days.
A gross is 144, or twelve dozen (12 x 12). There is a baker’s dozen (13) but no baker’s gross. I always thought a baker’s dozen was 12 + 1 for the baker to eat, but apparently not.
A baker’s dozen originated in medieval England to prevent bakers from facing severe penalties for accidentally selling underweight loaves of bread. Lacking accurate scales and facing strict laws, bakers would add an extra item to ensure they didn’t fall short, and this practice became a safeguard against punishment and eventually a tradition known as a baker’s dozen.
A dozen dozen is a gross, and a dozen gross is a great gross. I wonder if you could call it a gross gross?
“Buying in gross” also means wholesale in English, though the declining Google is reluctant to find many uses of the term; you have to enforce the search with quotes.