I’m European. I’m not talking about American cars.

And it’s also a joke with a bit of truth to it. They do require much more care so they’re more often in the workshop than, say a Toyota.

We don’t really learn the reason, we just memorise the word for the number. Kinda like you know the word “dog” means a four legged cute creature, but not why the name is “dog”. The old rules are not something we are teached, I just got curious after a confused foreigner made me think about the system for a second :p

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”

BMW’s are famously known to be in the workshop more often than on the road. My friend’s BMW had a type of self-cleaning oil. All he has to do is top off the oil once a month. Just ignore the stain on the parking lot, it’s not oil.

It’s not like a BMW is more reliable.

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).

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”.

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.

Greetings from Denmark! I’ve bought a Canadian whiskey to see if it’s possible to make good cocktails with in place of Bourbon. That is probably my most difficult boycott of them all… Man’s gotta have his alcohol.

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

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.

• 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

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.

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.