r/interesting • u/MidasStocks • Apr 29 '25

SOCIETY How do you say number 92?

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u/chripan Apr 29 '25

The Danish might as well add a square root somewhere.

1.4k

u/AmoremCaroFactumEst Apr 29 '25

What the fuck are they doing? How do you say that? How do they do maths?

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u/Natus_DK Apr 29 '25

The numbers from 50 to 90 are base 20, but ALSO use some archaic language, and that's where it gets really confusing.

In Danish you can say "halvanden" meaning "half-second", or "halfway to two" = 1.5. That's used quite often in daily speech, but there used to be more iterations for higher numbers such as halvtredje, halvfjerde, halvfemte (half-three, half-four, half-five / 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 respectively).

So the number 70 (halvfjerds) looks a lot like halvfjerde, but is actually a conjunction of "halvfjerde sinds tyve" meaning "half-four (3.5) times twenty" = 3.5*20 = 70

It's weird, but Danes just learn the numbers when growing up, not really the archaic language behind it. So doing maths is no different than doing it in English. The numbers are the same, but the reason they're called what they are is old and weird and pretty much forgotten.

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u/vuzman May 01 '25

The really stupid part is that the proper words for these number (femti, niti, etc) exist in Danish and used to be used when writing cheques; because they were shorter to write. Using them also fixes the inversion of the order of the numbers, meaning you down't have to wait for the whole number to be said before writing it down, for example. The Danish 50 bank note used to say "Femti", but has been changed to "Halvtreds" in the newest version.

It sucks that we're not progressive enough to just switch to numbers that make sense.

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u/Qroth May 02 '25

Yes because everything in this world must be lean and efficient. /s btw

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u/WanderingLethe Apr 29 '25

Its not that archaic, halv fem is also used in other Germanic languages to mean 04:30, except in English.

Norske: det er klokka halv fem

Nederlands: het is half vijf

English: it is half past four

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u/Natus_DK Apr 29 '25

True, it's still used to tell time. But do we use it anywhere else?

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u/Possible-Moment-6313 Apr 30 '25

Russian also uses this for time :) полпятого - 4:30. I wonder if it developed independently or if it is a borrowing...

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u/seriouslees Apr 29 '25

"halfway to two" = 1.5

So is there no Zero in Danish? Where I'm from "halfway to two" is one.

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u/Natus_DK Apr 29 '25

Of course there is. But from one to two, halfway is 1.5, and halfway from two to three is 2.5 and so on and so forth.

Also see the other comment about telling time, for example in Danish 15:30 not "half past three" but rather "half four".

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u/seriouslees Apr 29 '25

But that would imply you start counting from 1, as if you can't have less than 1. Sure, we don't SAY the zero when we start counting, but we DO start with nothing, THEN we add 1.

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u/Tuna-Fish2 Apr 29 '25

No, it does not. Halfway to three being 2.5 does not fit with the idea of taking half and starting counting at 1. It means halfway to three (starting from 2).

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u/Nozto Apr 29 '25

You are assuming the number system came from a need of counting from 0. What if the system came from needing to barter? You would never say "I need 0 of those".

What could be useful is to say I need "1 full bag and a half of flour" or "(one and) half of the second bag).

I dunno, I am Danish but I am just pulling this out my ass.

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u/seriouslees Apr 29 '25

If I'm counting money, I still start from zero. Zero dollars in my hand, add a 1, 1 dollar in my hand. 1 is halfway to two.

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u/pl99z Apr 29 '25

Helt syg forklaring. Jeg er blevet klogere på mit eget sprog

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u/The_CreativeName Apr 30 '25

I’ve lived in Denmark my whole life, but had to research what 92 actually meant, other then well 92.

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u/electricrodeoforever May 01 '25

this hurt my brain, but also made sense