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Since English is read and written left-to-right, it seems like it'd be more intuitive to do it the other way. How is it more intuitive to write 3-20 when you m
by byrneseyeview 17y ago
Since English is read and written left-to-right, it seems like it'd be more intuitive to do it the other way.
How is it more intuitive to write 3-20 when you mean twenty-three?
- ars 17y agoYou would say 3 and twenty, and doesn't french say its numbers that way? "when you mean"??? This is just how you grew up, it has no bearing what what is more or less intuitive.
- bbg 17y agoFrench: vingt trois (twenty three) German: drei und zwanzig (three and twenty)
- ars 17y agoI thought it was french that did something like "three twenties and a ten" for seventy? Am I thinking of some other language?
- kgrin 17y agoThat's true enough (93 = "quatre-vingt-dix trois" = "four twenties and three"), but it's still the case that the more significant digit is listed first - it's just composed by multiplying.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- akamaka 17y agoFor the record, 93 is quatre-vingt-treize ("four twenties and thirteen")
- peterbraden 17y agothe Swiss French dialect has a far nicer system - they say neufant trois, this is fairly colloquial though.
- chancho 17y agoEnglish: Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
- byrneseyeview 17y agoThe quoted portion to which I responded specifically referred to English.