• Nangijala@feddit.dk
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    3 hours ago

    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    2 and a half fives’ twentieth = outdated cringe. 2 and a half fives = actually how it is said today.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.

  • letsgo@lemm.ee
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    2 hours ago

    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.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      6 hours ago

      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

      • Nariom@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        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)

        • rumba@lemmy.zip
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          4 hours ago

          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 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 :)

        • vandsjov@feddit.dk
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          5 hours ago

          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.

    • vandsjov@feddit.dk
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      5 hours ago

      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!

  • frank@sopuli.xyz
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    8 hours ago

    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!?

    • "no" banana@lemmy.worldOP
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      7 hours ago

      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.

      • frank@sopuli.xyz
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        7 hours ago

        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

        • "no" banana@lemmy.worldOP
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          6 hours ago

          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.

  • kameecoding@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    The map is wrong, Czechs can do both 2+90 and 90+2, I am not sure if it’s regional within the country, or depends on the context, but they definitely use both versions

  • atro_city@fedia.io
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    13 hours ago

    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.

    • HorreC@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      I just tried to say tentyfive like four times in a row and I couldnt speak for 20 seconds after that. Thank you.

    • rumba@lemmy.zip
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      6 hours ago

      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.

    • kungen@feddit.nu
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      8 hours ago

      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.

      • atro_city@fedia.io
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        5 hours ago

        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.

      • dufkm@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        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.

    • Kellamity@sh.itjust.works
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      10 hours ago

      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

      • CannedYeet@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        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.

      • 🔍🦘🛎@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        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

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        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.

      • atro_city@fedia.io
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        11 hours ago

        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?

        • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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          11 hours ago

          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.

  • StThicket@reddthat.com
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    15 hours ago

    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.

  • VonReposti@feddit.dk
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    17 hours ago

    Even worse. 90 in old Danish is “halvfemsindstyve” but it is rarely used today. The “sinds” part is derived from “sinde” means multiplied with but it is not in use in Danish anymore. That leaves halvfems, meaning half to the five (which is not used alone anymore) and tyve meaning twenty (as it still does).

    We are in current Danish shortening it to halvfems which actually just means “half to the five” in old Danish (4.5) to say 90. 92 is then “tooghalvfems” (two and half to the five, or 2+4.5). The “sindstyve” part (multiplied with 20) fell out of favour.

    So we at least have some rules to the madness. Were just not following them at all anymore.

    Edit: Minor old Danish math correction.

      • VonReposti@feddit.dk
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        11 hours ago

        No, we use the same numeral symbols as everyone else. We just pronounce it in the most unintuitive manner possible.

        I can imagine that we once had symbols representing the base 20 system but standardised at some point to decimal symbols. I though haven’t encountered any piece of history to back that up.

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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      11 hours ago

      This is making my brain hurt. I need to try reading a few more times but, if I am understanding it correctly, the old Danish way of saying it is mathematically incorrect?

      Half-to-five == 2.5

      2.5*20 == 50

      Did I read that correctly?

        • Match!!@pawb.social
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          7 hours ago

          for no particular reason, in English, 5:30 can be said as “half past 5” but never “half until 6”. (but “five thirty” is still more common)

          • tamal3@lemmy.world
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            6 hours ago

            Quarter-past the hour, and quarter-till, are still common. Though perhaps less common as we move towards digital clocks.

      • TaTTe@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        I’m not Danish, but I think he meant 4.5 instead of 2.5. It’s like halfway from 4 to 5, not from 0 to 5.

        A similar word exists in Finnish too, when going from 1 to 2: “puolitoista” translates to “half second”, like halfway to the second number, and is commonly used to refer to 1.5, BUT without any multiplication shenanigans.

        • VonReposti@feddit.dk
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          10 hours ago

          Correct.

          • Half to the second (halvanden, still in use today) = 1.5
          • Half to the third (halvtredje) = 2.5
          • Half to the fourth (halvfjerde) = 3.5
          • Half to the fifth (halvfemte) = 4.5

          And so on. You might notice that I sometimes write it like “halvfemte” and other times “halvfems”. The latter is just the way it was spelled when used in a combined word (another fun quirk in Danish that we inherited from Germanic this time!). 90 is today spelled just “halvfems”.

    • HorreC@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      How did you guys even get to this thought process for saying this sort of thing? Why would you work in fractions for whole numbers in language to start? Is this a monarch thing like they fancied themselves a math wizard so they said it like it was a solution on countdown and others mimicked to keep them happy/sound smart themselves?

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        5 hours ago

        How

        Why

        Dane here. My guess is utter madness resulting from a history of overdosing on fly agaric filtered through the urine of slaves, followed by a distressingly long period of Catholicism.

        Frankly, it’s a wonder that our ancestors didn’t come up with an even MORE bizarre way of saying numbers and other things!

      • VonReposti@feddit.dk
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        18 hours ago

        The reason is that the Danish numbering system is based on a vigesimal (base-20) system instead of the decimal system. Why is a good question but it might have been influenced by French during a time where numbers from 50-100 is less frequently used, making them prone to complexity. The fractions simply occur since you need at least one half of twenty (10) to make the change from e.g 50 to 60 in a 20-based system.

        • HorreC@lemmy.world
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          3 hours ago

          why would you avoid the fraction and use it up to 100 then minus 8. I dont have a lot of an issue with it being base 20 but the idea that talking in numbers you have to know fractions for a child is WILD to me. You have to do like a month of understanding math fractions to get how to speak whole numbers.

        • VaalaVasaVarde@sopuli.xyz
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          17 hours ago

          That’s the technical reason, another reason is that the Danes tried to out-French the French, as they were very hip at the time.

        • EddoWagt@feddit.nl
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          17 hours ago

          But how did Danish end up like that even though it’s quite similar to Germanic languages and obviously neighbouring Germany?

          • bstix@feddit.dk
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            15 hours ago

            English also has words like dozen (12) and score (20).

            I guess it came from the physical counting in trading. Imagine counting 96 small items. It makes sense to group them into scores and then count the scores. 1 score 2 score 3 score 4 score and a half score. Then there are few remaining that didn’t fit it neatly in scores and then counted last. That’s a total of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 plus the 4 and a half scores.

          • VonReposti@feddit.dk
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            17 hours ago

            No idea. We probably had a period where we traded a lot with the French and got influenced by the vigesimal system that way, creating the abomination of a Frankenstein monster we have today.

      • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
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        17 hours ago

        Little fun-fact: We still have a trace of this left in Norwegian, where the most common way to say “1.5” is not “en og en halv” (“one and a half”) but “halvannen” which roughly translates to “half second”.

        We abandoned the “half third”, “half fourth” etc. very long ago (if we ever used them), but “halvannen” just rolls nicely off the tongue.

        • VonReposti@feddit.dk
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          12 hours ago

          We actually still say “halvanden” in Danish too. Everything else is not used (except for halvfems which means 90…)

            • VonReposti@feddit.dk
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              7 hours ago

              Halvfjerds for 70 but yes. Firs is 80 though, so that doesn’t make in much easier.

              Fjerde = fourth, fire = four. That makes “half to the fourth” become “halv til fjerde” or “halvfjerds” while “four times twenty” becomes “firsindstyve” and shortened to new Danish “firs”

        • KSP Atlas@sopuli.xyz
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          11 hours ago

          In polish, “półtora” means one and a half, it comes from a proto-Slavic word meaning “half-second” for some reason

    • Skvlp@lemm.ee
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      18 hours ago

      (5-0,5)x20 = 4,5x20 = 90? 2+((5-0,5)x20) = 2+(4,5x20) = 2 + 90 = 92?

      • VonReposti@feddit.dk
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        17 hours ago
        • Half to the five = (5-0.5) = 4.5
        • “Sindstyve” = multiplied by 20
        • 4.5*20
        • Two and half to the five multiplied by twenty = 2+(5-0.5)*20 = 2+4.5*20 = 2+90 = 92
          • VonReposti@feddit.dk
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            10 hours ago

            Yeah, it’s kinda the difference between saying “the clock is currently half past twelve” (the English way) and “the clock is currently half to one” (which we say in Danish and probably in a wealth of non-English languages too).

  • ooli2@lemm.ee
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    15 hours ago

    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

  • LocoLobo@lemm.ee
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    15 hours ago

    Fun fact, english used to count the same way as german, and it still has the numbers in “reverse” from 13 to 19.

    • enkers@sh.itjust.works
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      14 hours ago

      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.

      • jaaake@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        I’m 43 years old and this is the first time I’ve seen an explanation of these numbers. Thank you!

    • Sockenklaus@sh.itjust.works
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      13 hours ago

      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…