this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
493 points (94.6% liked)

Funny: Home of the Haha

5370 readers
1846 users here now

Welcome to /c/funny, a place for all your humorous and amusing content.

Looking for mods! Send an application to Stamets!

Our Rules:

  1. Keep it civil. We're all people here. Be respectful to one another.

  2. No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia or any other flavor of bigotry. I should not need to explain this one.

  3. Try not to repost anything posted within the past month. Beyond that, go for it. Not everyone is on every site all the time.


Other Communities:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] PlutoniumAcid 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Dane here. We don't use half-third to say 2½ except for the time of day, like half-twelve is 11:30.

The way we count is indeed that way though: halvfems is short for halvfemsindstyve, literally half-five-times-twenty, meaning ½5×20 = 4.5×20 = 90.

We don't use "fems" tough. That would mean femsindstyve which is 5*20 and we say a hundred of course.

So we have this:

  • 10 = ti = ten
  • 20 = tyve = twenty.
  • 30 = tredive = thirty.
  • 40 = fyrre = forty.
  • 50 = halvtreds = short for half-three-times-twenty.
  • 60 = treds = short for three times twenty.
  • 70 = halvfjerds = short for half four times twenty.
  • 80 = firs = short for four times twenty.
  • 90 = halvfems = short for half five times twenty.
  • 97 syvoghalvfems = seven and half five times twenty.
  • 100 = et hundrede = One hundred.
[–] nicolairathjen 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

There is a relic from this system still in use: halvanden (1 and a half). Though I doubt many people know the origin of the word.