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As a native Polish speaker it was very strange to me when English speakers say things like "twelve hundreds" for numbers between 1000 and 2000. Nobody in Poland

by ajuc 7y ago

As a native Polish speaker it was very strange to me when English speakers say things like "twelve hundreds" for numbers between 1000 and 2000. Nobody in Poland ever says that because we don't separate 200 into 2 words "two hundred" we say "dwieście" (which comes from two hundreds, but is significantly changed and considered separate word not 2 words joined). It sounds to us like "4 twenties" would sound to English people instead of "eighty". So because of language it's not natural to think of 1300 as 13*100, it's much more natural to think of it as 1000+300. But it's still better in Polish than in German ;) At least we don't do mixed endian like "hundred two and twenty" :)

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thaumasiotes 7y ago
> when English speakers say things like "twelve hundreds" for numbers between 1000 and 2000 We do that in every other range too. It would be completely normal to read 3700 as "thirty-seven hundred". In what I assume is a related phenomenon, long numbers can be read out in digit pairs rather than single digits (say a PIN code 3742 - "thirty-seven forty-two", as opposed to "three seven four two"), though the digit pairs idea breaks down when a 0 is present.
- ajuc 7y ago
  > In what I assume is a related phenomenon, long numbers can be read out in digit pairs rather than single digits Poles do it as well, in pairs, triples or single digits, doesn't matter. But only for numbers that aren't quantities. Like - ids, account numbers, zip codes, phone numbers - no problem, but reading population or account balance that way would be weird.
nkrisc 7y ago
> As a native Polish speaker it was very strange to me when English speakers say things like "twelve hundreds" for numbers between 1000 and 2000 Minor nitpick but people will say, "twelve hundred" not "twelve hundreds" (at least in all of my experience growing up in the US). The reason being, you have eight hundred, nine hundred, (we don't talk about ten hundred), eleven hundred, twelve hundred, and so on. It's kind of like a continuance of how the hundreds below 1000 are named. Interestingly you will hear sometimes "ten hundred" when talking about address systems where each block increases the address by 100. Such as, "the ten hundred block of Example street." But I've never heard it anywhere else.
- Zanni 7y ago
  Minor nitpick nitpick: except for years, e.g., I don't remember exactly when the Magna Carta was signed, but it was somewhere in the twelve-hundreds.
  - swimfar 7y ago
    That's not really an exception for years. It means something different. Twelve hundred is a single number, 1200. Twelve-hundreds is a range from 1200-1299. You can also do the same thing with many other ranges (e.g. house numbers).
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    I'm talking only about the numbers, 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200, etc. That is, counting by hundreds on the hundred. So your point does not contradict mine.
- gpvos 7y ago
  That would actually be practical for naming years in the current century, e.g. twenty hundred nineteen for the current year sounds much better to my (Dutch) ears than two thousand nineteen. We do say twenty nineteen, of course, but the intermediate "full name" step of twenty hundred nineteen is never used, making it a bit weird.

by ajuc 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

thaumasiotes 7y ago

> when English speakers say things like "twelve hundreds" for numbers between 1000 and 2000 We do that in every other range too. It would be completely normal to read 3700 as "thirty-seven hundred". In what I assume is a related phenomenon, long numbers can be read out in digit pairs rather than single digits (say a PIN code 3742 - "thirty-seven forty-two", as opposed to "three seven four two"), though the digit pairs idea breaks down when a 0 is present.

ajuc 7y ago
> In what I assume is a related phenomenon, long numbers can be read out in digit pairs rather than single digits Poles do it as well, in pairs, triples or single digits, doesn't matter. But only for numbers that aren't quantities. Like - ids, account numbers, zip codes, phone numbers - no problem, but reading population or account balance that way would be weird.

nkrisc 7y ago

> As a native Polish speaker it was very strange to me when English speakers say things like "twelve hundreds" for numbers between 1000 and 2000 Minor nitpick but people will say, "twelve hundred" not "twelve hundreds" (at least in all of my experience growing up in the US). The reason being, you have eight hundred, nine hundred, (we don't talk about ten hundred), eleven hundred, twelve hundred, and so on. It's kind of like a continuance of how the hundreds below 1000 are named. Interestingly you will hear sometimes "ten hundred" when talking about address systems where each block increases the address by 100. Such as, "the ten hundred block of Example street." But I've never heard it anywhere else.

Zanni 7y ago
Minor nitpick nitpick: except for years, e.g., I don't remember exactly when the Magna Carta was signed, but it was somewhere in the twelve-hundreds.
- swimfar 7y ago
  That's not really an exception for years. It means something different. Twelve hundred is a single number, 1200. Twelve-hundreds is a range from 1200-1299. You can also do the same thing with many other ranges (e.g. house numbers).
- nkrisc 7y ago
  I'm talking only about the numbers, 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200, etc. That is, counting by hundreds on the hundred. So your point does not contradict mine.
gpvos 7y ago
That would actually be practical for naming years in the current century, e.g. twenty hundred nineteen for the current year sounds much better to my (Dutch) ears than two thousand nineteen. We do say twenty nineteen, of course, but the intermediate "full name" step of twenty hundred nineteen is never used, making it a bit weird.