2y ago

How to say the number 92

131 18

172 comments

What's going on in Denmark?

It's base 20 like in France, plus the quirk that we have an ordinal numeral way of saying half integers, i.e. 1.5 is "half second", 2.5 is "half third", 4.5 is "half fifth". So 92 is said as "two and half fifth times twenty". We've since made the "times twenty" implicit for maximum confusion, so it's just said as "two and half fifths".
Also, the ordinal numeral system for halves is only really used for 1.5 these days, so the numbers don't really make sense to anyone. When speaking to other Scandinavians, we often just say "nine ten two".
Why don't we just change it to the more sensible system then? Because language is stubborn.
- Now imagine moving there as a foreigner from a normal country and someone telling you their phone number! It's like having a micro stroke.
- 1.5 is "half second", 2.5 is "half third", 4.5 is "half fifth"
  Interesting. ~~Regionally, some~~ Germans measure time like this, i.e. "half two" is 01:30 resp. 13:30. (Which is different from English, where people who say "half two" mean "half past two".)
  We've since made the "times twenty" implicit for maximum confusion, so it's just said as "two and half fifths".
  I know very little about Danish, but I learned that Danes slur the middle of most words. So I suspect you actually pronounce even less of the word than you'd write..?
  Because language is stubborn.
  Belgian French gives me hope.
  --
  [Edited: Usage is not regional]
- So the Danish can do this bullshit with everyday numbers and it’s cool because language , but I mention that it’s 70 degrees outside and everyone starts arguing about metric?
  Everything is arbitrary, I’m gonna go build a dresser in multiples of rabbit foot while you all figure something out.
- And to confuse even further, the cardinal number (ninety-two) is "to-og-halv-fems" in Danish without the *20. But if you need the ordinal number (92nd), then we add in the x20 as in "to-og-halv-fem-sinds-tyvende". Danish is very easy and transparent 😊
- And yall give us shit about using imperial measurements
- I like our weird numbers tho 🥰
- I have to admit, as a French myself I found relief in that discovery. And thank you very much for the explanation.
  I was confused by the "2 and" at first, then I realize you put the smallest part of the whole number first. It makes perfectly sense if you count in base 20.
  We also have an habit to count in base 12 and half 12 in France. Like "half a dozen" (6) or "one dozen and half" (18), but only for multiple of 6.
  I will now say "quatre vingtaine et demie" instead of "quatre-vingt-dix" just to tease my fellow Belgians (who say "nonante" and "septante" instead of "soixante-dix" et "quatre-vingt-dix")
  EDIT: As a matter of fact, I will rather say "trois et demi-cinquième vingt" for 73 because it sounds better. Now I see it.
  If I am correct, the 3rd 20 is everything between 60 and 79. The half-3rd 20 is everything between 70 and 79. So 7 and half-2nd 20 would be 37?
  How would you say 40, 60 and 80 then ? 2nd 20, 3rd 20 and 4th 20?
- 30 (tredive) you cited seems to be the exception, as it's not “halbtots” or something.

#	🇩🇰
1	en
2	to
3	tre
4	fire
5	fem
6	seks
7	syv
8	otte
9	ni
10	ti
11	elleve
12	tolv
13	tretten
14	fjorten
15	femten
16	seksten
17	sytten
18	atten
19	nitten
20	tyve
21	enogtyve
22	toogtyve
30	tredive
40	fyrre
50	halvtreds
60	tres (threes)
70	halvfjerds (½fourths)
80	firs (fours)
90	halvfems (½fifths)
92	tooghalvfems (twoand½fifths)
100	hundred

In Czech, we say „čtvrt na osm“ (quarter to eight), „půl osmé“ (half of eighth) and „tři čtvrtě na osm“ (¾ to eight) to mean 19:15, 19:30 and 19:45, respectively, so I kinda get it.
Similarly, in German, 🕢=„halb acht“.

TIL that it not French with the weirdest way to count. I still don't really get the Danish way. Even with your explanation.
We also do this in germany
Funny enough, I grew up saying "quarter of eight" to mean 19:45. It took until my mid-20s to realize its probably a regional thing because, after I left Philadelphia (my home city) and moved to Chicago, everyone thought I meant 20:15.
Thats pretty common in terms of time. I'm not going to say something is "half five" to say it coststwo and a half dollars though. I understand that with French and Danish you arent actually doing the math and just think of that string the same way i think of "ninety two" but it's still difficult to wrap my head around.

We play on Hardcore mode.
You better have your operations in order!
Crack.

Also: the green (at least with English) should be (9 × 10) + 2
- English is 90 + 2. Ninety is its own distinct word.
  French is similar to English (base ten) but after 60 it gets weird and then at 80 switches to base 20 until 99.
  70 in French is 60 + 10 80 and above in French is 4 × 20 + what ever number is needed to get there.
  
  So to say 102 in French, you'd say four-times-twenty-plus-twenty-two.
  I don't believe you.
  EDIT: What in the actual fuck. You were right. 😳
  
  In Belgium, it's Septante, Huitante, and Nonante.
  
  In spanish is also 90 + 2
  
  Seriously, french counting from 20 to 99 is fucked up seven ways sideways.. what were they thinking
- nine ten? (nineteen ;) )

Man and here I thought the English system was kinda screwy, where at first it's in base 12 and base 20 at the same time what with having special unique names for all digits up to twelve, and then thirteen through nineteen are also uniquely weird, then at twenty we decide "man fuck that" and then it's in base 10 until we repeat that pattern every 100, ie "one hundred seventeen." Or then we occasionally do stupid things like "seventeen hundred" instead of "one thousand seven hundred."
It just now hit me that "teenager" is an inherently English construct because that weird partial second decade we have. I'm curious, how does that work in languages? Like, in French they have special words up to 16 and only do "ten-seven, ten-eight, ten-nine." You spend seven years as a teenager in England but only three in France.
- Germanic languages share this. German has neun, zehn, elf, zwölf, dreizehn, vierzehn...
  
  But continues after that. Apart from 11 and 12 the german system is consistent within itself, even if the system itself is kinda weird, English less so.
  Edit: What i meant is the difference between ten/teen, whereas German uses zehn ("ten") to build the "compount numbers". There is also thir-teen as opposed to three-ten, which isn't quite what eleven and twelve are, but it's also not the same as the numbers following it. But others have pointed out that these are pretty marginal differences and i would agree.
- In Finnish, the numbers 11–19 are (the number for 1–9) + “toista”, lit. “of the second (ten)”. So 11 is yksitoista, “one of the second (ten)”. That system is only used for 11–19. Bigger than that is tens + number, e.g. 21 kaksikymmentä yksi (two tens and one).
  The Finnish word for “teen” is “teini”, which is a loanword from English. The native word for a person that’s not a child nor an adult is “nuori” lit. “a young”.
  
  Japanese is 1 (ichi), 2 (ni), ...,10 (juu), 10+1 (juu-ichi), 10+2 (juu-ni), ..., 21 (ni-juu-ichi)..., 92 (kyu-juu-ni)..., 100 (hyaku)
- In my language(Romanian), the numbers between 11 and 19 are onetoten,(unsprezece) twototen(doisprezece) ... Ninetoten(nouasprezece)
  There are 3 exceptions: for 11 instead of unusprezece(onetoten) its unsprezece(un/o is used when saying that there is only one of something, but unu is used when counting), for 14 instead of patrusprezece(fourtoten) its paisprezece and instead of sasesprezece(sixtoten) its saisprezece
- In Czech, we say náctiletý but that applies to 11 (jedenáct) through 19 (devatenáct)
- then we occasionally do stupid things like “seventeen hundred” instead of “one thousand seven hundred."
  Both are acceptable, though. Such-and-such hundred is just a little faster to say.
- In Swedish the numbers from 13-19 work similarly. We just add "ton" instead of teen. Teenagers called tonåringar (ton-agers).
  
  TIL a little about Swedish.
  I wonder if Swedish and English number words share a history, because I can imagine it started as "three ten" which gets crunched to "thr-t'n" and then properified into "thirteen."
- At 40 I still get confused when people say shit like 12 - hundred and 16. I'm like... Is that 12 groups of 100? Is that a 12 with 000 after?
  1 thousand, 2 hundred and 16.
  But I wasn't ever a math major or anything.
  Even as I typed it, it made sense. But to throw it into a conversation. Makes me less certain.
  
  Flight school beat "twelve hundred" out of me.
  
  The more formal way of writing it (one thousand, two hundred and sixteen) is definitely more clear. But if it helps to remember the more colloquial way (twelve hundred): twelve hundred is a 12 followed by 2 zeros, just like one hundred is a 1 followed by 2 zeros.

I think Denmark should stop doing crack.
- If that's crack I really wonder what crazy shit the US and UK take to end with the imperial system!

In Hungary we don't even have a separate name for 11 and 12, just 10 + 1 and 10 + 2. But at least we messed up the billions, it's called 'milliárd' and the trillion is 'billió'. We were so close to making it perfect.
- sigh That's normal across Europe, including the UK until recently.
  
  Legend
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales
  Anyway, don’t tell me Hungarian is sensible when second (unit of time) is “másodperc”.
- But at least we messed up the billions
  No, you folks did it correctly. It's everyone else who messed up: How big is a billion?
  1 million squared is a billion. 1 million cubed is a trillion. (1 million)^4 is a quadrillion. And so forth with pent-, sex-, sept-, oct-, etc. Milliard, billiard, trilliard, etc. slot in between the powers of one million.
  
  TIL, then our number system is perfect!! :D
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  How big is a billion?
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
- Italy joins the club of messing up the billions 🙌
  For us a billion is "un miliardo" and a trillion is "un bilione"
  
  I think that's fairly normal in Europe, isn't it? In Germany we have Million, Milliarde, Billion, Billiarde instead of million, billion, trillion and so on, too.
  
  I might be remembering this incorrectly, but a billion in Europe used to be a million million, and we would count in thousands of millions first, as opposed to a billion now being a thousand million.
  I can't remember whether a trillion was a million (old) billion, or whether it was a billion billion.

There's also they way it's said in Basque which is 4 x 20 + 12.
- So exactly like French on the map ?
  
  Yes, but in Basque.
  
  Which is why it doesn't make sense that it's colored green

I’m not sure what’s more asinine, the colors chosen for this map, or the ~~Dutch~~ Danish.
Edit: worth it for the joke
- Guys we found Austin Powers.

🇬🇧 ninety
🇫🇷 quatre-vingts-dix
🇩🇰 HALVFEMS

4*20+12
Four score and twelve
- Quatre vingt douze
  
  It's a quatre vingt doozy!

So what is going on in Walloon and Swiss French? Is it just the Parisian dialect that is messed up?
- Swiss French are reasonable people, they're using 90+2.
  
  What's the Swiss French word for 90?
  Edit nevermind it's further down the thread. Septante, huitante, and nonante.
- Quebec is also messed up, unfortunately.

Something rotten...
Seriously, have trouble enough with numbers anyhow. The French system is far more than my little brain can compute, so I pretend to have learned the language from Belgians.
But who knows, maybe the Danish system would have tipped my infant brain into having a better grasp of some concepts?
- I don't want to be that guy, but In Belgium they speak Flemish (a variant of Dutch) in the North, or French in the South. Which one is it?
  
  Francophone Belgium is mostly in the south east - it is shaded green on the map & the Flemish area is the yellow bit above.
  
  What are you even talking about? You aren't responding to the OP in any meaningful capacity.

You missed the traditional Celtic systems.
Welsh should be both 9 x 10 + 2 and 2 + 10 + 4 * 20.
And Irish – I didn't get it, they seem to have a modern 9 x 10 + 2 system, an old vigesimal and one for age?
- Nobody ever remembers Welsh on these charts.

Are all German numbers like that?
- No, it gets more confusing the more numbers you add. 34563 4+30 thousand +500 3+60
  
  Ow my brain.
  Also funny because I had assumed English got the numbering system from German.
- Yes, Germans say numbers like that. (It only applies to the tens tho)
  Roughly translated you'd say two-and-ninety (without the minus, I just made those so it doesn't look that cursed)
  It's mainly because at least in German it flows better than ninety two would. There have been pushes to accept ninety two as well but acceptance has been and continues to be scarce.
  
  Man I'd love for that to catch on, mostly so it's easier to learn. Kids get confused by the order all the time. It's even shorter in some cases.
  Also, the reverse order makes dictating phone numbers such a pain.
  
  (It only applies to the tens tho)
  Tens, but also ten-thousands, ten-millions, ten-billions ... you get the gist.
- some (very few, i think it's only the "teens") english numbers are like that, like seventeen (7+10) for example
  
  Kind of. Those are distinct names rather than seven+ten. It took a long time until I even made that connection that teen probably came from ten.
- Yes, and it's so annoying. I'm Austrian, a bit dyslexic, and sometime I just can't sevenandeighty sixandseventy.
- Only 21-99, after that you say the hundred (thousand, million, etc.) first.
- Of course, why would 92 be an exception? (Only numbers with a thousand-group ending in 21-99 do that, though)
  
  See French going nuts for 92.

Czechia should also be a combination of both 90+2 and 2+90
- Ahoj! We’re like ⅞ „devadesát dva“ and ⅛ „dvaadevadesát“. Some numbers have it higher (25 is closest to ½/½) but we use inverse reading quite rarely overall.
  ^Join ^{[czech-lemmy.eu](https://czech-lemmy.eu)}
  
  Point is it is used and understood :)

I'll see you at twenty past nine
NL: oh you mean 10 before the half of 10

Actually in Estonian it's üheksakümmend kaks. The first being a compound word of nine(üheksa) and ten(kümme) while kaks is just two. So it would be 9+10+2.
- Wouldn't that be more like "nine 10s plus two"?
  
  Yes, it seems like 9×10+2
- That's exactly how it's done in English: ninety means 9*10, then you add two. The wrong language in the picture is Russian. Because the Russian word for ninety is an exception and doesn't follow the same rule as 80, 70, etc.
  
  The wrong language in the picture is Russian. Because the Russian word for ninety is an exception and doesn't follow the same rule as 80, 70, etc.
  You are neither wrong nor right here. Yes the Russian word for 90 does not follow the rule as with 80, 70 and so on. It still is a specific word for 90, it just doesn't follow the same rule as with previous ones. So when saying 92, you still pronounce 90+2.
  It is a whole messed up thing with numbers in Russian as there are multiple exceptions, another one being for 500, it just does not follow the same rule.
  
  Well, no, in english ninety means 90. You don't say nine-ten. Most probably it started off as nine-ten, but by now it is it's own distict sound as someone else under this post commented.

Who out here is calling ninety two as two ninety?
- Look at the map, dude. German, Dutch, Slovenian, sometimes Norwegian (and Czech). Usually adding “and” between the two numbers.
- In Dutch it's tweeënnegentig. Which is three words connected: twee en negentig. Or literally translated: two and ninety.
- In Norwegian, the correct way to say it is ninety two, but in daily speech, it's interchangeable with two-and-ninety.
  
  Same in Czech, but the two-and-ninety is not much used.
- I thing english also used to do this right? Saying 2 and 90 surely sounds old timey

172 comments