this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2024
1103 points (99.7% liked)

Technology

55642 readers
3600 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Beryl 17 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

It supposedly comes from originaly counting in base 20 ( a.k.a : vigesimal system) in some proto-european language. There are traces of it in breton, albanese, basque and danish for example. Even in english, there is a reminiscence of vigesimal, in the "score", see for example Lincoln's Gettysburg Address which famously starts with : "Fourscore and seven years ago...", meaning 87 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

As a frenchman who always found quatre-vingt weird but never bothered to find out why, thanks :)

[–] Beryl 3 points 3 weeks ago

Mais je t'en prie :)

[–] perviouslyiner 1 points 3 weeks ago

In English is this why we say fifteen instead of tentyfive?