Something that's always confused me is that here we don't pronounce numbers from left to right. So instead of hundred ninety six (100-90-6) we say honderd zes-en-negentig (100-6-90)

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (7 children)

English used to be that way as well:

Sing a song of sixpence

A pocket full of rye

Four and twenty blackbirds

Baked in a pie.

In these lyrics "four and twenty" means 24

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Which actually makes sense when you remember that English, before the Normans at least, was very close to dutch.

[–] Dicska 15 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And it's all because they are germanic languages (at least old English is), and this is the same in German (vier und zwanzig).

[–] samus12345 7 points 5 months ago

Modern English is still a Germanic language, but with a LOT of Latin and French thrown in.

load more comments (4 replies)