Just ask the Danish how to "calculate" their word for 90, and you will consider the French approach simplicistic.
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
321 points (96.3% liked)
memes
22426 readers
2879 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
In a way, Danish is more clear than French, because all numbers between 50 and 90 are based on the vigesimal (base-20) system.
Oh yea, "half to five" aka 4.5 times 20. Very intuitive...
90 = Half fives.
50 = Half sixty.
70 = Half (I don't even know how to translate this)
Huh? 50 is halvtreds (20 * 2.5)
70 is actually halvfjerdensindstyve, literally "half to the four(th20) times 20". So the base number (20) * 3.5...
The problem is, Danish people can't understand each other even with the simplest of words, so they just say halvfjerds.
70 = halfway to the fourth twenty
In other words, three twenties are 60, four twenties are 80, halfway between them is 70.
Same for the other ones: 50 is halfway to the third twenty, 90 is half more than the fourth twenty.
Me in high school french:
70: soixante-dix ohhh trippy, 60 10, why not start at 50, that's strange so 80 will be soixante-vingt (60 20) right? ... right?
80: quatre-vingt 4 20's?
but why 60 20 and then 4 20?
Quatre-vingt blaze iet
Seems like my lifelong hatred for the French was justified after all!
LOL, They weren't so bad. I even went to Paris. TBH, I think the American tourists over there was much worse :) Prisians give off an NYC leave me the fuck alone vibe.
Back in Frances time these were large numbers. One million five hundred thousand one hundred eight, like ???? That's how people in the future will look at you when you say that number in English. Stop counting people, our brains are not meant for this
It comes from way before French. Some tribe, Celts, or whatever, call them Gauls, although it doesn't really mean anything other that "people who live in that area according to the Romans", counted in twenties. And that's one of the things they've left us. For better or for worse.
That and Asterix.
And look how far we got without it, it's all in your head buddy
Country burning to a crisp because of the climate armageddon? Far indeed.
Same as everywhere else 🤷
Unlike English when the name for those is seven-tens, eoght-tens, nine-tens?
Or "four score (20) and seven years ago" (4x20, +7= 87)
Or Roman numerals being like XIV (10, + (5-1) = 14)
.....the numbers have always been maths. Always
I take no complaints on that subject from people who measure in inches, feet and ounces.
We adopted the standard. The boat with the official measurements sank on the way over, you unread swine.
Fun fact: the moon landing was programmed and calculated in metric.
So, laughs in moon landing units.
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(34 replies)
🤓 Technically there are septante, octante/huitante, nonante, but it's either considered local to some region (belgium, switzerland, etc) or old-school
or old-school
That's the crazy part.
load more comments
(5 replies)
view more: next ›