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What irritates you the most with your own language?
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this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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How numbers are pronounced.
In German the number 185 is pronounced as "hundred-five-and-eighty" (hundertfünfundachtzig), the digits are not spoken in order of their magnitude.
Not terrible, not great.
Same thing for Dutch. For example, when we see 74 we pronounce it as four and seventy (vierenzeventig) and it makes no sense.
I guess it’s a Germanic language thing.
This is the same in Danish, but weirdly not in Swedish.
We say four-seventy for 74, and hundred-four-seventy for 174. But the swedes does it like the English. Don’t know about Norwegian though. Maybe OP can provide me with some new knowledge.
French: 80 is four twenties ("Quatre-vingt")
Edit: not four tens, four twenties. I can't count in any language, dammit!
And 90 - 99 are even worse, in that they are basically eighty-ten, eighty-eleven, etc.
Makes zero sense to my English speaking mind
Oh, it's worse than that.
80 is basically four-twenties. 17, 18, and 19 are basically ten-seven, ten-eight, and ten-9. Which makes 97, 98, and 99 four-twenties-ten-seven, four-twenties-ten-eight, and four-twenties-ten-nine.
I remember reading that one of the Scandinavian languages had a specific (successful) governmental policy to change from German-like numbers to English-like ones. I don't remember which of them it was.
It is true, at least here in Norway: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den_nye_tellem%C3%A5ten ("The new way of counting").
Our parliament deceided in 1949 that 21 should not be pronounced as "one-and-twenty", but as "twenty-one". It was because new phone numbers got introduced, and the new way gave a lot less errors when spoken to the "sentralbordamer" (switch operator ladies).
We need that here in Denmark.
It depens on age and/or dialect. My dialect is from the middle of Norway (trøndersk), and I say 74 as "fir'å søtti". Other parts of Norway may say "søtti fire". Luckily we do not do the weird danish numbers.
Early modern English has it so it tracks (four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie)
Also in the teens. Sixteen has the six before the ten
24 blackbirds baked in a pie?
It depends on how old you are here. If you say "fir'å søtti", you are at least in your 70s. If you say "søttifire", you are not 70 but younger.
And, to cause a bit more confusion, it also depends on your dialect, and if your dialect is the cause, your age isn't. Easy.