I had to look this up. What the fuck? They came up with numbers up to 60 and then just said “eh, fuck it” and made 70 “sixty-ten”, 80 “four-twenties” and 90 “four twenties ten”.
We’re not that different with the teens. We effectively say “seven ten”, “eight ten”, “nine ten”. You don’t think of nineteen as “nine+ten”, it’s just its own number. Well, the French take that one step farther.
Wait until you hear what the Danes do.
Why is “97” “7 + [-½+5] x 20” in Danish?
With the exception of Eleven and Twelve, English is actually pretty good at this.
The other day I decided I would stop saying quatre-vingt-dix (4, 20, 10 = 90) instead I would say huit-dix-dix (8, 10, 10) or even deux-quarante-dix (2, 40, 10) and shit like that
to add some context i forgot about it an hour after
Why not use the existing septante, octante, neunante?
Ask the guys in Modern times who decided that fick it we will go for the nonsensical method.
I’d actually be down for huitante, in order to keep the latin root like other numbers instead of the greek one
Neunante always struck me as a bit weird (although much better than the math thingy).
Neuvante would seem a more reasonable derivation from neuf.
Would also make it closer to other latin languages like Italian and Spanish.
idk i was tired and i tought it was the funniest thing
confirming it’s funny
… Four Twenties Ten Nine, Hundred
English: What’s that?
German: “Was ist das?”
Dutch: “Wat is dat?”
Spanish: ¿Qué es eso?
French: “qu’est-ce-que c’est ?”What. the fuck?!
Agree. But you can say “C’est quoi ?” too. More “street language” but it’s okay
I think it was around that time in my French class, with my teacher just without any comment expecting us to take that seriously, that I decided that’s not a language I wanted to deal with.
