this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
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[–] [email protected] 81 points 5 months ago (25 children)

I guess we can blame the French's confusing number system for that.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 5 months ago (17 children)

People seem to be angry at you for not knowing how the French count. My condolences. I found it funny tho. Have un upvote

[–] [email protected] 56 points 5 months ago (11 children)

Well, I DO know how the French count and compared to English it IS highly confusing. You can hardly convince me that saying "Four times twenty and ten" is as straight forward as saying "Nine tens".

And just to be clear: I'm not some Yankee or Brit with a superiority complex, no, I am German, and we have our own shitty version of this: Instead of moving along the digits from highest to lowest, as in "Four hundreds and two tens and nine", we do "Four hundred and nine and two tens".

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

It supposedly comes from originaly counting in base 20 ( a.k.a : vigesimal system) in some proto-european language. There are traces of it in breton, albanese, basque and danish for example. Even in english, there is a reminiscence of vigesimal, in the "score", see for example Lincoln's Gettysburg Address "Fourscore and seven years ago..." means 87 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

But Basque isnt an Indo-European language its a Paleo-European isolate. Cultural mixing not with standing.

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