quatre-vingts

Comments

• MossyFeathers@pawb.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I had to look this up. What the fuck? They came up with numbers up to 60 and then just said “eh, fuck it” and made 70 “sixty-ten”, 80 “four-twenties” and 90 “four twenties ten”.

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  • Fried_out_Kombi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    In Switzerland, they use septante, huitante, and nonante for 70, 80, and 90, respectively. Much more sensical, imo.

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    • Jay@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      In Belgium, they use “septante” and “nonante” too. 80 is still “quatre-vingt”.

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    • AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Swiss French is what French should have always been imo

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  • monsieur_jean@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The other way around. We started with base 20 everywhere then simplified some of it.

    During medieval times it used to be :
    10 Dix (10)
    20 Vingt (20)
    30 Vingt et dix (20+10)
    40 Deux-vingt (2x20)
    50 Deux-vingt et dix (2x20+10)
    60 Trois-vingt (3x20)
    70 Trois-vingt et dix (3x20+10)
    80 Quatre-vingt (4x20)
    90 Quatre-vingt et dix (4x20+10)

    Then they switched to base 10... But only up to 70 for some reasons in France. Belgium and Switzerland (and some parts of France) have gone all the way to 100 by using Septante (70), Octante or Huitante (80) and Nonante (90).

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    • Comment105@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Belgians and Swiss being the premium version of France, once again.

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• sp451@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Wait until you hear what the Danes do.

  Why is “97” “7 + [-½+5] x 20” in Danish?

  jose-lesson.com/lin/2017/01/16/nonaginta-septem/

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  • nxfsi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Normal children usually gain fluency in their native language by age 5. Danish children need to wait until age 7.

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  • Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It’s kind of funny how aware Danes are of their weird numbers system. I speak Norwegian and whenever I’m in Denmark they use the more sensible Norwegian number system to explain to me the prices of stuff (probably because I give them the deer in the headlights-stare whenever I hear something like “fem og halvfjerds”).

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    • Comment105@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      They think we’re stupid and infantile for evolving past tradition.

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  • Creazle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    No kidding. It’s the sort of thing that makes you think about how different people process info differently

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  • VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    TIL that there’s actually (kinda but not really) a method to the madness that is our numbers 😄

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  • volvoxvsmarla@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Thanks for the link! While I was aware of the weird numbers in Danish, this gave a great explanation and I wish I had had this info when I was forced to learn French in school. The way this vigntisian system evolved is actually quite interesting and makes so much sense. Everything makes sense now. Wow.

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• BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I’ve seen this coutless times, and as a french native I’m getting tired of this, I want to tell you that no french think of it that way.

  You know how you have “eleven” “twelve” and then you switch to “xxteen” for the next 6 number ? You never dissociate them, because that’s just the way it is. French are the same “douze”, “treize”… and then suddenly “dix-sept” but nobody dissociate them, this is just one word that means “17”

  And then it’s the same with “seventy”, french don’t dissociate 60 and 10 in their mind, it’s just one word. Sure from an ethymologic standpoint it comes from two word but it’s not how we think about it.

  When you say “sunday” you never think “day of the sun”, when you say “blueberry”, “blackberry” you don’t think of the color, you think of the particular fruit, everybody can see the origin of the word, but nonetheless the word is one unit.

  Anyway. Yes it is weird to learn a new language and see how it evolved into a weird mess, but please know that when you make this kind of comment you don’t look like you are well informed about the french language, you just look like kids that have learned a new word and can’t stop using it everywhere.

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  • gjghkk@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I want to tell you that no french think of it that way.

    Of course not, that’s the point though. It was your first language, so for you that’s the norm. But for the rest of the world with another language that’s weird as fuck.

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  • elscallr@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    There’s only one place a French native gets this wound up about a joke. Are you Parisian?

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    • BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I am not, but I’ve seen this jokes so many times online…

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  • Hadriscus@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It doesn’t matter, it’s just something every child learns by heart and doesn’t question. You don’t have to be offended by this post, it’s just funny

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    • BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Not particularly offended, but just tired of seeing this jokes which I think is not really accurate, and it’s like an entry level joke about french language, there could be so many ways to make fun of french

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  • johnlobo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    nah, you guys are just weird.

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• moitoi@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This doesn’t apply to all french speaking regions. Switzerland use septante and nonante and in some regions of the country also huitante.

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  • Nariom@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    was gonna say props to Switzerland and Belgium for having proper numbers :) idk why we don’t switch

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    • Hadriscus@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Probably because the cost of switching isn’t worth it. Same reasoning as the imperial system and driving on the left (barbaric, I know)

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• someguy3@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  With the exception of Eleven and Twelve, English is actually pretty good at this.

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• redballooon@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I think it was around that time in my French class, with my teacher just without any comment expecting us to take that seriously, that I decided that’s not a language I wanted to deal with.

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• independantiste@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The other day I decided I would stop saying quatre-vingt-dix (4, 20, 10 = 90) instead I would say huit-dix-dix (8, 10, 10) or even deux-quarante-dix (2, 40, 10) and shit like that

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  • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Why not use the existing septante, octante, neunante?

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    • independantiste@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      idk i was tired and i tought it was the funniest thing

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    • thedarkfly@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’d actually be down for huitante, in ordre to keep the latin root like other numbers instead of the greek one

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    • happyhippo@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Neunante always struck me as a bit weird (although much better than the math thingy).

      Neuvante would seem a more reasonable derivation from neuf.

      Would also make it closer to other latin languages like Italian and Spanish.

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    • moitoi@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      People are actually using huitante and not octante.

      Regions use septante, huitante and neunante outside France and especially in Switzerland.

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    • HenriVolney@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Ask the guys in Modern times who decided that fick it we will go for the nonsensical method.

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• Chickenstalker@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The French is the reason English is a clusterfuck of inconsistent grammar and spelling.

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  • elscallr@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Well and German, and some other Latin languages, and a bit of Nordic/Slavic languages, and all the other languages whose pockets English rifled for loose vocabulary.

    I love the language, honestly, I love how completely and unapologetically a clusterfuck it is, but it’s a clusterfuck.

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    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don’t Rhyme―And Other Oddities of the English Language

      You are the person I’ve been waiting to recommend this book. It’s fascinating. It was wild to see everything explained. It all has very good reasons for being completely insane, but it gave me a much deeper appreciation for why it is as is.

      And for those of you too lazy to read a book, here’s a podcast interview with the author:

      99percentinvisible.org/…/corpse-corps-horse-and-w…

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• olosta@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The “four twenties” might seems more familiar to americans by replacing “twenties” by “score” as in : " four score and seven years ago…"

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  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Yeah, that’s weird too.

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• Pregnenolone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  “seventeen, eighteen, nineteen… ten… ten ten”

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• Blyfh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I think this actually roots in the problems of conversion to base ten from base twelve. Not sure though, maybe I remembered this wrong.

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  • DarthCluck@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Being lazy and not going to look it up. I can’t help it to wonder if it’s also based in Sumerian’s base 60

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    • monsieur_jean@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It's base 20.

      80 in French is 4 x 20. A long time ago, 60 was "trois-vingt", 3 x 20. We still have a hospital in Paris called "Hopital des Quinze-Vingts", 15 x 20 because it used to have 300 beds.

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• Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Meanwhile all french speakers understand each other perfectly well.

  So you mistake people saying ninety-nine (99) for them saying ninety nine (90, 9)? No? How come? It’s the same thing!

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  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Do you not have the same issue with all numbers under 70? 62 or (60, 2)? And you still have that problem for in the seventies too, it just looks weirder in decimals. "Did you mean (60, 11) or 71?

    Even if there is a possible silver lining, it’s still arbitrary and weird.

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    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      And I’m English it would be 71 or 70, 1. I’m just pointing out that this meme about french by english strangers makes no sense since it’s the same thing in english.

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  • reeen@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Right, but the tens numeral and the ones numeral being separate words that you add makes more sense than occasionally throwing a curveball like 20×4+5

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    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      But it’s still clear what we’re saying when we speak. 4 20 5 vs 4, 20, 5 vs 4, 20 5 vs 4 20, 5, non of it sounds the same when we speak.

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• atlasraven31@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Deutsch: 2andThirty

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  • VanRijn29@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Dickensian English: in the year eighteen hundred four-and-thirty

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  • barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Much more regular than English where you have seven-teen but then seventy-one. To be consistent you’d need to switch to either teen-seven or one-seventy.

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    • atlasraven31@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’m okay with saying seven, ten-seven, twenty-seven, etc…

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