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What?
Edit: my research says that half-fifth is how they call 4.5, which is insane. Then they multiply that by 20, holy shit, they are mathematical geniuses. So:
7 + 4.5 * 20.
WHAT THE FUCK.
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How about in telling time? Like half seven means 7:30 in British English but is 6:30 in Dutch and German
american time keeping for the win in this case.
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Well i was talking about the lack of relative time. It is clear if you say 6:30
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Half fifth isn’t 4.5 but 90 because of 4.5 * 20. Its the same with half third being 50 and half fourth is 70.
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Norwegian, but I was tought this by a dane.
Fems is the short as you say, but that isn’t really possible to translate correctly. Thats why people translate it to fifth. The proper danish for a fifth is en femtedel. I might be mistanken here, but I dont think any dane would ever talk about 4.5 as halv fem (half five), but as fire komma fem.
The exception is when we talk about the time in the nordics. Then half passes four is half five.
Dane here. We don’t use half-third to say 2½ except for the time of day, like half-twelve is 11:30.
The way we count is indeed that way though: halvfems is short for halvfemsindstyve, literally half-five-times-twenty, meaning ½5×20 = 4.5×20 = 90.
We don’t use “fems” tough. That would mean femsindstyve which is 5*20 and we say a hundred of course.
So we have this:
- 10 = ti = ten
- 20 = tyve = twenty.
- 30 = tredive = thirty.
- 40 = fyrre = forty.
- 50 = halvtreds = short for half-three-times-twenty.
- 60 = treds = short for three times twenty.
- 70 = halvfjerds = short for half four times twenty.
- 80 = firs = short for four times twenty.
- 90 = halvfems = short for half five times twenty.
- 97 syvoghalvfems = seven and half five times twenty.
- 100 = et hundrede = One hundred.
There is a relic from this system still in use: halvanden (1 and a half). Though I doubt many people know the origin of the word.
Absolutely retarded
Growing up bilingual in German and English, can I just say german’s “7 + 90” is pretty dumb too.
397 is 300 + 7 + 90: 100s 1s 10s. For bigger numbers you’re doing it repeatedly.
In German for every set you’re saying the digits and tens in the wrong order. You get used to it, but only if you grow up in Germany (I didn’t), else it forever does you head in reading numbers.
Dutch also has that problem, it causes so many errors.
Old English used to have the same problem ( https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Old_English/Numbers ), but at one point they must have seen the light, probably some time after they were conquered by the french in 1066. I do remember reading a Charles Dickens story where a person said a number with tens and ones in the reverse order and I wonder when it finally died out completely in English (if it ever did, maybe it’s still in use in some dialects).
Edit: thirteen, fourteen, … There’s still commonly used remnants of this reverse order in English, we’ll never get rid of this insanity :)
Not to defend the French but the more correct representation would be 4 * 20 + 10 + 7.
Also if you take this meme to the extreme it would be best to just say “97” which requires a unique word for every number instead of a system to construct them. So I guess there is a balance to be struck in number composition.
also “ninety” is literally just a shortening of “nine ten”, it’s not like the french pronounce the whole thing either, i’d wager it usually comes out more like “katvandisett” which isn’t much worse than “ninetyseven”
Actually we do prononce it entirely, at most dropping the first syllable
Since we use decimal system then nine+ten makes complete sense
Context:
German:
- “siebenundneunzig”
- = “sevenandninety”
English:
- = “ninety-seven”
French:
- “quatre-vingt-dix-sept”
- = “four-twenty-ten-seven”
It’s shit like that why I wonder people just don’t update their languages, remove useless letters, nonsensical loan words exonyms, etc.
We all do constantly with each word spoken. Language is updated without rest forever.
German did. And it worked. One of the reasons is probably that written German is uniform everywhere. I imagine language reformes are harder and less effective when dialects are still big.
Like many things in life, languages aren’t necessary logical but I’m looking forward to your efforts to finally get everyone into Esperanto!
Or Lojban.
Edit:
Lojban (pronounced [ˈloʒban]) is a logical, constructed, human language created by the Logical Language Group which aims to be syntactically unambiguous.
LOL, this kind of shit is what happens when people do try to police their language:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Académie_Française
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_québécois_de_la_langue_française
… A dictionary? We already have those in English lol.
No, French has private dictionaries that aren’t normative. This isn’t that.
The Académie is a quasi-governemental institution built by Louis XIV to impose a normative version of French. They initially reformed the language but quickly ended up enforcing the linguistic status quo. French hasn’t had a (much needed) structural reform in about two centuries.
What the academy defines to be “proper French” is essentially the only French that is used by the government, media, and school system, and they refuse to acknowledge changes in usage at every turn.
This means that French is set in stone and mid-19th century books have essentially the same grammar as 21st century French apart from some very minor differences.
(I won’t get into the systemic and very successful repression of minority languages which is closely related).
Tbf I think in English it’s more like… 9*10+7
I’m not a historian or linguist so there is a good chance I’m wrong, but I just kind of always assumed that “ninety” meant “nine-tens” - that the “ty” was an earlier form of, or was corrupted from, “tens”.
from Old English nigontig, from nine + -tig “group of ten”
Russian be like:
- ten
- two ten
- three ten
- centipede
- five ten …
- centipede
Sounds simular, but no. It was commonly traded abount of sobol(and other animals with fur) skins. Sooo…
- ten
- two ten
- three ten
- furry
- five ten
…
- eight ten
- ninetillhundred
- hundred
And 123456 would be hundred two ten three thousands four hundred five ten six.
Also worth noting that current 10 is десять, while everything more then 10 is using older дцать.
French Belgians 90 + 7
Same for Swiss French except for Geneva (of course).
In old French, 127 was 6*20+7.
It’s the fact of using base 20.
Lincoln: 4 * score + 17
Seven, not seventeen. Though IIRC, he used the 4 score and 7 years ago, as a way to indicate that he was giving a speech, not speaking the common parlance
That’s the Gettysburg Address which is 87. But 97 as in the picture would be +17
Gotcha, now I see what you were saying
80 (quatre-vingt) comes from the base 20 system. That’s a vestige from pre indo-European languages (specifically the Gauls) that ended up influencing France.
Interestingly (if I’m not mistaken), in Switzerland they actually say “huitante” and in Belgium they say “octante”.
In Wallonia ( french belgium ) you’re also likely to hear “nonante” for 90 IIRC
Swiss french use the 80s and 90s terms like in english
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And the French get offended if you use the wrong word. I went to a shop there and asked if something was ninety (there is a word for that). The shopkeeper gives me a scathing look and says with emphasis it’s four twenty ten.
‘Nonante’ is used in the French-speaking part of Belgium, but it’s generally frowned upon in France.
frowned upon
as in “you just wiped your ass with my language, my country and the history of my ancestors” it seems
They kind of stare at you as if you just farted in the most obscene way possible.
Or they passive-aggressively make you repeat what you said until you say it ‘right’.
Or they reply in a kind of exaggerated broken English.
Can’t let this go by without posting this classic:
Katre-van-deez-nuts
Ha! Je les ai eu!
