• Dunstabzugshaubitze@feddit.org
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    3 days ago

    and i thaught we germans were stupid with our numbers because we say stuff like “zwei und dreißig”/“two and thirty” instead of “dreißig und zwei” or “dreißig-zwei”.

    i wonder how stuff like this came to be, it must have been good for something to have stuck around.

      • Dunstabzugshaubitze@feddit.org
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        3 days ago

        nope, because 132 is “einhundert zwei und dreißig” and not “zwei und dreißig und hundert” that it’s inconsistent is what bothers me.

        • hdzki@lemmy.ml
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          3 days ago

          It’s the same in Arabic! “مئة واثنان وثلاثون” = “hundred and two and thirty” Not sure about German, but the Arabic example can theoretically come with in any order. However, you almost never see it another way

        • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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          3 days ago

          Spanish with the sanity again!

          Ciento treinta y dos (Literally: Hundred thirty and two)

      • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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        3 days ago

        Except no, because one hundred and twenty three is ein hundert drei und zwanzig (spaces added in for ease of comprehension for non-German speakers).

    • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 days ago

      Pretty sure it’s some very old way of counting.

      English used to do it the same way after all.

      There’s this nursery rhyme about “four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie” that I can’t remember the rest of. Except that the previous or next verse ended with “rye”.

    • RejZoR@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      Slovenia also uses reversed reading of numbers. 32 is zwei und dreissig in German and we have dvaintrideset (twoandthirty).