this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2023
759 points (98.0% liked)

Europe

8324 readers
1 users here now

News/Interesting Stories/Beautiful Pictures from Europe ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡บ

(Current banner: Thunder mountain, Germany, ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช ) Feel free to post submissions for banner pictures

Rules

(This list is obviously incomplete, but it will get expanded when necessary)

  1. Be nice to each other (e.g. No direct insults against each other);
  2. No racism, antisemitism, dehumanisation of minorities or glorification of National Socialism allowed;
  3. No posts linking to mis-information funded by foreign states or billionaires.

Also check out [email protected]

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] [email protected] 155 points 1 year ago (51 children)

What's going on in Denmark?

[โ€“] [email protected] 233 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (30 children)

It's base 20 like in France, plus the quirk that we have an ordinal numeral way of saying half integers, i.e. 1.5 is "half second", 2.5 is "half third", 4.5 is "half fifth". So 92 is said as "two and half fifth times twenty". We've since made the "times twenty" implicit for maximum confusion, so it's just said as "two and half fifths".

Also, the ordinal numeral system for halves is only really used for 1.5 these days, so the numbers don't really make sense to anyone. When speaking to other Scandinavians, we often just say "nine ten two".

Why don't we just change it to the more sensible system then? Because language is stubborn.

[โ€“] [email protected] 102 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now imagine moving there as a foreigner from a normal country and someone telling you their phone number! It's like having a micro stroke.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When you need a math degree for basic communication

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

๐Ÿคฃ๐Ÿคฃ

load more comments (28 replies)
load more comments (48 replies)