Ehh, i’m not giving France a pass either.
The answer to 100 - 8 should not be four twenties and a twelve. We’re counting, not making change.
French counting is bunk. Way, Way, better then Denmark though apparently
the thing nobody mentions is that the 4x20 part became a word that just means 80 in people’s mind, it kinda not literal anymore, but the Swiss and Belgian ways are still better (edit the 4x20+10 is similarly just 90)
(edit the 4x20+10 is similarly just 90)
I can let you get away with the first part about 4x20 just becoming the word for 80, but with this one, you’re just fooling yourself and others.
If it were just another word for ninety, than ninety-two would be (4x20+10)+2 instead of 4x20+12 And it works that way up to 96.
Just stop making excuses and own the weirdness.
… I would say that’s more about 10 and 12 having their on words, we don’t say ten two, it’s a bit of a shortcut? Then after 16 we stopped caring and didn’t make new words, sticked to 10 7, 10 8, 10 9 for some reason, that IS weird. Unless you take into account that base 10 wasn’t always the norm and maybe it made sense to have dedicated words for numbers up to 12 or 16 because they were commonly used quantities or alternative counting bases idk. See I can find (blurry memories of, needs sources) good reasons ;p The point being people say 4 20 12 but only think 92.
I don’t think a different base explains things really well. Even though the way you guys count to 16 may point to a hexadecimal system, but then all the higher numbers would have to work entirely different. It’s at least an inconsistent mix of systems.
But of course you don’t do maths in your head and it all just boils down to words for numbers, that you simply know. That’s just how language works, and a lot of language starts to become weird, if you think about it too much. Doesn’t mean we can’t have fun teasing each other about it. ;)
e a word that just means 80 in people’s mind, it kinda not literal anymore, but the Swiss and Belgian ways are still better (edit the 4x20+10 is s
And if it was 28 syllables, it would still be 80 in people’s minds. But the words are still four twenty ten eight for what could easily just be nine eight.
I get it, but it is really inefficient for something as oft used as counting.
If it makes you feel better, English is full of crap like that which doesn’t make any sense and I’ll own that as a trash language :)
Yeah that’s why i say the Belgian and Swiss ways are better, their French speakers have dedicated words for 70 80 90. That being said I not sure but I guess in a lot of languages those words just mean 7x10 8x10 9x10 … we understand base 10 better but that’s still a calculation in disguise, historically (and still in some cultures?) base 10 isn’t the norm (hence the 4x20 among others).
Most Danes does not know how 92 is constructed - it is just as picture one, second calculation: 2 and halvfems = 92.
However, I do feel like we’re using Imperial unites.
I think the first picture jumps over a little bit of calculation:
9 x 10 + 2
2 + 9 x 10
p.s. The third one makes total sense!
For a real explanation of this watch this illuminating video.
TL;DW According to the perons, it’s based on counting sheep and from base 20. 1 score = 20 sheep. 2 score = 40 sheep.
To get to 50, you have 2.5 score, but they don’t say “two and a half”. They are quite Germanic and say “halfway to 3” (Germans do this too). So, 50 = half three score.The video also points out that English has (as the hodgepodge of a language it is) yet another remnant of Germanic languages: 13-19 are not “te(e)n-three to te(e)n-nine”, but “three-te(e)n to nine-te(e)n”, just like in German “drei-zehn bis neun-zehn”.
It’s quite easy to mock other languages, but there’s always a reason for why things are the way they are. Think of Chesterton’s fence.
There’s also a reason for imperial measurements, but it’s still a worse system than metric.
What’s your suggestion for a change to the Danish counting system? Do you think it is as obvious as going from imperial to metric?
Yes.
Stop being weird, Danes, literally everyone else figured it out.
It’S tHeiR gErmaN hEriTaGe
If the Frisians can figure out how not to be a bunch of weird number freaks while running around on clogs on their dikes and being half fucked up French the Danes have no excuse.
I agree with your broader point about linguistics, but Chesterton’s fence has never sat right with me. Consider the inverse:
This annoying and unnecessary fence is an inconvenience, but since nobody can remember what it’s for, we dare not remove it
Chesterton’s fence is a warning not to commit this logical error: I don’t know what this fence is for, therefore I know there is no reason for it.
It doesn’t say never to remove it. It means you should try and figure out why it’s there and ask around before removing it.
AGRARIAN REFORM!!
It’s just a logic exercise that advicates forethought when enacting change. The bigger problem is people taking parables and thought experiments as gospel, faithfully adhering to the text without considering it’s intent.
More people need to read Asimov’s Foundation
I honestly don’t understand what’s insightful about it. It encourages a functional viewpoint that results in you inventing proposed uses for something that is a vestige of an inefficiency. Justifying something useless isn’t curiosity, it’s just masturbation. You should identify how a structure interacts with it’s current environment. There’s a reason functionalism is considered worthless in sociology.
I think the point is more that you should take care to consider why it was put there because it might be something that is not immediately obvious.
You should identify how a structure interacts with it’s current environment.
OK, but what if it was put there to stop something that only happens once every 10 years? Without taking the time to learn this, you might tear it down and then after a few years you’re scrambling to solve a problem that was already solved.
I’m very hostile to excuses for conservatism because they’re often positions to apologize for power structures that have a secondary gain. The point I’m making is you should never approach something that previously existed as if it was beneficial by default. It’s often not and that’s a fallacy as much as automatically believing it’s useless. That’s what this guy was doing with his Catholic apologia.
You should consider history to develop predictive theories(like what you’re describing). But those are always subordinate to observable reality and bothering with trying to justify them too much is generally worthless. Sometimes you just need to act, considering inaction is an action itself.
In essence, it’s a bad argument because it both presupposes you don’t interrogate why things exist(you do, that’s the entire point of the argument in the first place) and argues that an unknown reason might exist you might have to defer to. No shit. There might also be an unknown reason that it’s incredibly destructive. Neither of those themselves are an argument, but one is certainly an appeal to tradition masked by an analogy.
there’s always a reason for why things are the way they are
Of course, no one is saying that the Danes were so drunk that they simply wanted to make their numbering so much different than everyone else. The problem is that they don’t want to change it, probably because “it has always been this way” or something.
Even Norwegian, which was historically more like Danish, changed to using “normal” counting in the 1950s. So it can be done, but Danes seemingly don’t want to change, despite the fact it makes their language harder to learn/use.
Change it to what? Twenty-one? One Twenty? Four times twenty and one? Four time twenty plus ten and five? You could go the Germanic way, the Anglo-Saxon way, or the French way. Probably there are more ways to express numbers.
It’s not as straight forward as imperial to metric, where metric is logical and imperial isn’t. A vigesimal system is logical, just like binary or hexadecimal.
even imperial had a logic when it was made, same with every old measurement system. Everyone has hands, fingers, and arms boom you have small scale. The acre was once just what a single ox and plow could do in 1 day. there was never a need to square feet per acre, who would ever need that. Plus look at how old system were written. Try uses the metric system with roman numerals.
How many inches are there in a foot? How many in a yard? How many in a mile? More importantly: why? The foot is from a duodecimal system (12 points = 1 line, 12 lines = 1 inch, 12 inches = 1 foot), but then then suddenly 3 feet = 1 yard.
Also the imperial system is simple, not logical. Sure, it’s based on body parts and simple things like that, but every moron could’ve seen that hands have different sizes. Now you have about 3 imperial systems (international, British, US) maybe more even more if the old colonies invented more units. Everyone knows the way forward for units it the SI units. It’s logical, it’s straight forward, and it’s used worldwide - except for a minority of regions that are staunchly are against it.
It’s a shame that, when Norwegians changed their counting system, the suggestion of using “to-ti” didn’t catch on for 20. It would be analogous to saying “twoty” in English.
This comment makes me so sleepy…
I agree 13 -19 in English are out of place, and 11-12 are left over from duodecimal, however changing some spoken order is way less cursed that doing fraction multiplication.
I for one, would love if we started saying ten-one, ten-two, etc.
This small part of Danish is definitely fair game to tease. It’s all in good fun!
I just tried to say tentyfive like four times in a row and I couldnt speak for 20 seconds after that. Thank you.
but there’s always a reason
By and large, there’s a reason for everything, but it’s just not always a good reason.
If I have 100 rocks and take away 8, the answer to how many rocks I Have should not require a math problem. We’re counting, not making change. If your counting system isn’t decimal-based, you’re no better off than the US using imperial measurements.
Norway used to count like the Germans, but switched after the introduction of the telephone. There were simply too many mistakes when telling the numbers to the operators, that a change was mandated.
Old people might still use the 2+90 variant though, but it is not very common.
So now you’re calling me old? THE NERVE!
to everyone who reads this dudes comment and starts imagining 75 year old grandmas saying it: i’m 30 and say 2+90, and it’s still very much a thing.
That meme is so lame. 92 in Danish is two and a half fives. The 20 part is old-fashioned and literally nobody has used that since the 1800s.
2 and a half fives’ twentieth = outdated cringe. 2 and a half fives = actually how it is said today.
It’s still a friggin nightmare to get someone’s Phone number verbally, though.
That only makes it worse.
Two and a half fives = 12.5.
More like 2 and half fives. Half five is our word for 90. So in essence we say 2 and 90 but the word 90 is half five.
80 is fours
70 is half fours
60 is threes
50 is half threes
40 is forty
30 is thirty
20 is twenty
10 is ten.
Oh and a 100 is a hundred. So I dunno what happened between 50 and 90, but I’m sure there is a funny story behind that somewhere.
You’re just digging yourself and Denmark into deeper hole. It’s fucked up and you know it
I never claimed otherwise. I’m just tired that this 92 meme is using outdated language (or numbers rather) to make a point that may have been reasonable to make in the 1800s, but not today. Doesn’t mean our number system is any less retarded today. If anything, I’m just adding on to the fact that Danes are notoriously lazy with the Danish language and will cut corners with all words and sentences the same way Americans cut corners when they chop everybody’s name up into bite sized nicknames. For us, though, it’s more like slurring at the end of a word and flat out ignoring letters that are very clearly there in the word.
Woe is the poor asshole who decides to immigrate here and attempts to learn the cancerous gargle that is our language.
That said, it is still the best language to curse in and when used in poetry, it can be downright majestic.
But yeah, our curses are superior to all words in the English language.
My favourite for life will always be kræftedme = cancer eat me - usually uttered in a sentence to underline how pissed off you are and how serious you are about being pissed off.
My favourite for life will always be kræftedme = cancer eat me - usually uttered in a sentence to underline how pissed off you are and how serious you are about being pissed off.
Just curious: do you take that as a reference to cancer as a sickness or actual crabs eating you?
In German the word for cancer (Krebs) is a homonym referring to both the sickness and a crustacean. So I wondered how this works in Danish.
(It is in English too, though the reference to crabs is only scientific and thus a very exotic interpretation)
In Danish cancer is “kræft” while crab is “krabbe” so kræftedme refers to getting eaten by the sickness. Could potentially also refer to strength as kræft/kraft also refer to physical strength, but I’m pretty sure it refers to the sickness.
More like 2 and half fives.
Even worse! That would be an indeterminate number that starts at 7 and goes up by 2.5 increments depending on how many half fives there are (since in this version it’s not specified, but has to be more than one).
7, 9.5, 12, 14.5…
I love this. I thought English had some crazy aspects but this is next level.
Not Danish here… Isn’t that 12.5?
It’s breaking my brain too, what is this cryptography lmao
When you have to write down numbers, but the person reading you the numbers speaks slowly 💀
Them: “Two…”
Me: “2”
Them: “… and fifty”
Me: “…
2- 52”Them: “Six…”
Me: “6”
Them: “… and twenty.”
Me: “
6- 26”🫠
No, in Danish the “half five” part means the same as “half past 4” on the clock: 4.5.
Then the part that most people omit nowadays, sindstyvende, means times 20.
(Half past 4) times 20 = 90.
Dane here. No one actively thinks of 90 (halvfems, 2 and a half fives) as a mathematical expression. Is is just a word for 90. So we say 2+90 like Germany.
Would it have been nice if that word meant “9 tens”, yes, but Danish is a just a stupid language where you have to learn a bunch of things by heart unfortunately.
How would you say trump is like Hitler? Do you have to describe the Holocaust in few words within a long ass German style word?
Easy. We often use idioms for comparisons.
One old way would be: “Trump and Hitler are both 2/3 yards from one piece” which means “They’re cut from the same (bad) fabric”.
Fabric was cut in an old measurement"alen" which was 2 foot or 2/3 yards, so simply stating the length would be understood as fabric, similar to how everyone knows that a 2x4s is a piece of wood and such.
Ah yes! I understand the culture fully now!
Denmark = outdated cringe
Just kidding neighbor, I love you all
Found the swede xD ❤️
Let’s grab a rød pølse and some surströmming
edit: evil combo of the year
I’ll bring the kamelåså and we get the party started
Exactly
Base 20, or “vigesimal”.
I’m actually impressed by this map. The French speaking part of Switzerland is not only differentiated from the German speaking part, it is also differently coloured than France, since Swiss French has more sensible numbers.
Finnish is actually 9*10+2
Yhdeksänkymmentäkaksi
Yhdeksän = nine
Kymmentä = of ten
Kaksi = two
Fun fact, english used to count the same way as german, and it still has the numbers in “reverse” from 13 to 19.
Eleven and twelve kinda are as well. They literally mean “one left” (ain-lif) and “two left” (twa-lif) with the “over ten” being implied.
I’m 43 years old and this is the first time I’ve seen an explanation of these numbers. Thank you!
German’s my first language and I am kinda proficient in english but I never realized that the english numbers 13 to 19 work like like ours…
French is pretty stupid too. Smart Belgium with french as national tongue only changed that number aberration: They use the made-up word “octante” for eighty and “nonante” for ninety, instead of “quatre-ving” (four-twenty) or “quatre vingt dix” (four-twenty , ten) in proper french
What if I told you that all words are made up?
In Belgium we use nonante, not octante, that is, iirc only used in Switzerland. That means we at least don’t use quatre-vingt onze etc.
oh my bad… so they went “septante” “nonante” and kept the “quatre vingt” in the middle… this is more weird
Dunno, I prefer french to spanish tbh. Maybe its because basque is like French.
Isn’t it mostly 9*10+2? 9 * ty (implying 10) + 2.
Even german does that, although weirdly the way you can’t just write down long numbers reasily one by one: Zwei (2) und ((and) neun- (9) -zig (*10)).
Quatre-vingt douze isn’t incredibly onerous when you use it in practice.
Quatre-vingt dix huit or quatre-vingt dix neuf are definitely more of a mouthful and illustrate the point better.
hard agree i actually think france’s method of counting is pretty intuitive
Agreed. Fourscore and twelve just works (English used to use this, at least in formal speech and writing).
Yeah France is fine
French language uses math to speak numbers if anyone is wondering about France.
Edit: Apparently I wasn’t precise enough for the dude below. It starts at 70 and ends at 99 every time you get to those numbers. De rien, tabarnak.
Not quite. They just have remnants of an old base 20 system that kicks in for specific numbers.
Je le sais, je parle français .-.
Haha, nice. Sorry, I meant no offence, was just further explaining the weirdness of French numbers (I love that kind of shit in languages)
Note to self: For learning a scandinavian language - learn Swedish instead of Danish.
If you learn swedish, you can speak danish. Just put a hot potato in your mouth
Why do Danes all have a potato in their mouth?
For good luck
Ugh okay here’s another “Danes shouldn’t be allowed to make number stuff”:
The time 15:25 is “five minutes before half 4”
“Fem minutter i halv fire”
So you round up to 16 before even halfway, what!?
That makes perfect sense to me though. In Swedish we’d say fem i halv fyra. Five minutes to half four.
But in English half four would be short for half past four. I guess.
Counting like the Danish, however, that is an abomination.
Man 3:25 is right there
What’s wrong with “25 over 3?” I see the need for half 4 by itself but things being relative to that is so weird to me
Well, it’s interesting because that would be the case with 15:20. That’d be tjugo över tre (twenty past three). But specifically 15:25 would be fem i halv fyra (five to half four). 15:35 is fem över halv fyra (five past half four).
And then 15:40 is tjugo i fyra (twenty to four).
So :25 and :35 are weird edge cases.
Agree - even “3 25” would be perfectly normal.
I’m very Danish and refuse to adhere to this nonsense. It’s pronounced “three twenty-five”.
Jeg elsker dig for det
Same in Dutch,
“Vijf voor half vier”
Yeah the Dutch way of saying time is also messed up, I still have to think about it for a moment every time.
You can say the same in Poland. “Za pięć w pół do czwartej.”
@ObviouslyNotBanana Ninety-two → Nine-ty-two → 9x10+2 :troll:
We can also do 2+90 here in the UK. There’s a nursery rhyme about “four and twenty blackbirds” that I think the kids are still learning.
