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When I was around 14 years old I was baby sitting a kid who was 3 or 4 or something. He came up to me and said "I bet I can say a bigger number than you." clear
by GotAnyMegadeth 12y ago
When I was around 14 years old I was baby sitting a kid who was 3 or 4 or something. He came up to me and said "I bet I can say a bigger number than you." clearly proud of what he had just learnt in preschool. I accepted the challenge, he took a deep breath and said "Five hundred!", so I said "Five hundred and one". He looked determined and said "Ok then! Five hundred and fifty hundred and five hundred million hundred five hundred" (Or something that makes no sense like that). So I said "Five hundred and fifty hundred and five hundred million hundred five hundred, and one". He looked horrified and said "Can you just say 'and one' for any number?" I told him yes, and he said "Cool!".
- poizan42 12y agoAnd every since has that poor kid believed that "Five hundred and one and one" was a valid number.
- Xophmeister 12y agoIt kind-of-is, it's just not particularly well-formed/ambiguous linguistically.
- GotAnyMegadeth 12y agoA bit like 99 in French: quatre-vingt-dix-neuf four twenties and ten and nine
- eitland 12y agoI knew the Danes where counting in a crazy way but I didn't know the French did this as well. One more reason I'm happy English is the most common international language I guess.
- iak8god 12y agoAccording to wikitionary [1] "four score and seven" was a commonplace way of saying "eighty seven" in 19th c. English. [1] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/four_score_and_seven_years_ago https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/four_score_and_seven_years_ag...
- Xophmeister 12y agoNumber systems by complexity: http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/language/number.html http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/ts/language/number.html
- BenoitP 12y agoPeano says it is a valid number.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]