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[–] 30 points 9 months ago (5 children)

and i thaught we germans were stupid with our numbers because we say stuff like "zwei und dreißig"/"two and thirty" instead of "dreißig und zwei" or "dreißig-zwei".

i wonder how stuff like this came to be, it must have been good for something to have stuck around.

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  • [–] 21 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    Oh, you guys use little endian!

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  • [–] 30 points 9 months ago (2 children)

    nope, because 132 is "einhundert zwei und dreißig" and not "zwei und dreißig und hundert" that it's inconsistent is what bothers me.

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  • [–] 11 points 9 months ago

    It's the same in Arabic! "مئة واثنان وثلاثون" = "hundred and two and thirty" Not sure about German, but the Arabic example can theoretically come with in any order. However, you almost never see it another way

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  • [–] 3 points 9 months ago

    Pretty sure it's some very old way of counting.

    English used to do it the same way after all.

    There's this nursery rhyme about "four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie" that I can't remember the rest of. Except that the previous or next verse ended with "rye".

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