Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
Same thing for Dutch. For example, when we see 74 we pronounce it as four and seventy (vierenzeventig) and it makes no sense.
I guess it’s a Germanic language thing.
This is the same in Danish, but weirdly not in Swedish.
We say four-seventy for 74, and hundred-four-seventy for 174. But the swedes does it like the English. Don’t know about Norwegian though. Maybe OP can provide me with some new knowledge.
French: 80 is four twenties ("Quatre-vingt")
Edit: not four tens, four twenties. I can't count in any language, dammit!
And 90 - 99 are even worse, in that they are basically eighty-ten, eighty-eleven, etc.
Makes zero sense to my English speaking mind
Oh, it's worse than that.
80 is basically four-twenties. 17, 18, and 19 are basically ten-seven, ten-eight, and ten-9. Which makes 97, 98, and 99 four-twenties-ten-seven, four-twenties-ten-eight, and four-twenties-ten-nine.
I remember reading that one of the Scandinavian languages had a specific (successful) governmental policy to change from German-like numbers to English-like ones. I don't remember which of them it was.
It is true, at least here in Norway: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den_nye_tellem%C3%A5ten ("The new way of counting").
Our parliament deceided in 1949 that 21 should not be pronounced as "one-and-twenty", but as "twenty-one". It was because new phone numbers got introduced, and the new way gave a lot less errors when spoken to the "sentralbordamer" (switch operator ladies).
We need that here in Denmark.
It depens on age and/or dialect. My dialect is from the middle of Norway (trøndersk), and I say 74 as "fir'å søtti". Other parts of Norway may say "søtti fire". Luckily we do not do the weird danish numbers.
Early modern English has it so it tracks (four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie)
Also in the teens. Sixteen has the six before the ten
24 blackbirds baked in a pie?
It depends on how old you are here. If you say "fir'å søtti", you are at least in your 70s. If you say "søttifire", you are not 70 but younger.
And, to cause a bit more confusion, it also depends on your dialect, and if your dialect is the cause, your age isn't. Easy.