Even worse. 90 in old Danish is "halvfemsindstyve" but it is rarely used today. The "sinds" part is derived from "sinde" means multiplied with but it is not in use in Danish anymore. That leaves halvfems, meaning half to the five (which is not used alone anymore) and tyve meaning twenty (as it still does).

We are in current Danish shortening it to halvfems which actually just means "half to the five" in old Danish (2.5) to say 90. 92 is then "tooghalvfems" (two and half to the five, or 2+2.5). The "sindstyve" part (multiplied with 20) fell out of favour.

So we at least have some rules to the madness. Were just not following them at all anymore.

For a real explanation of this watch this illuminating video.

TL;DW According to the perons, it's based on counting sheep and from base 20. 1 score = 20 sheep. 2 score = 40 sheep.
To get to 50, you have 2.5 score, but they don't say "two and a half". They are quite Germanic and say "halfway to 3" (Germans do this too). So, 50 = half three score.

The video also points out that English has (as the hodgepodge of a language it is) yet another remnant of Germanic languages: 13-19 are not "te(e)n-three to te(e)n-nine", but "three-te(e)n to nine-te(e)n", just like in German "drei-zehn bis neun-zehn".

It's quite easy to mock other languages, but there's always a reason for why things are the way they are. Think of Chesterton's fence.

I'm German and our way of counting is genuinely stupid. 121 would translate to "onehundred one and twenty". You'd think it's just a matter of practice but errors related to mixing up digits are statistically more common in German speaking regions. Awesome when it comes to stuff like calculating medication dosages and such. Like it's not a huge issue but it's such an unneccessary layer of confusion.

Norway used to count like the Germans, but switched after the introduction of the telephone. There were simply too many mistakes when telling the numbers to the operators, that a change was mandated.

Old people might still use the 2+90 variant though, but it is not very common.

Fun fact, english used to count the same way as german, and it still has the numbers in "reverse" from 13 to 19.

That meme is so lame. 92 in Danish is two and a half fives. The 20 part is old-fashioned and literally nobody has used that since the 1800s.

2 and a half fives' twentieth = outdated cringe. 2 and a half fives = actually how it is said today.

It's still a friggin nightmare to get someone's Phone number verbally, though.

French is pretty stupid too. Smart Belgium with french as national tongue only changed that number aberration: They use the made-up word "octante" for eighty and "nonante" for ninety, instead of "quatre-ving" (four-twenty) or "quatre vingt dix" (four-twenty , ten) in proper french

I'm actually impressed by this map. The French speaking part of Switzerland is not only differentiated from the German speaking part, it is also differently coloured than France, since Swiss French has more sensible numbers.

Quatre-vingt douze isn’t incredibly onerous when you use it in practice.

French language uses math to speak numbers if anyone is wondering about France.

Edit: Apparently I wasn't precise enough for the dude below. It starts at 70 and ends at 99 every time you get to those numbers. De rien, tabarnak.

Finnish is actually 9*10+2

Yhdeksänkymmentäkaksi

Yhdeksän = nine

Kymmentä = of ten

Kaksi = two

Isn't it mostly 9*10+2? 9 * ty (implying 10) + 2.

Even german does that, although weirdly the way you can't just write down long numbers reasily one by one: Zwei (2) und ((and) neun- (9) -zig (*10)).

Note to self: For learning a scandinavian language - learn Swedish instead of Danish.

Ugh okay here's another "Danes shouldn't be allowed to make number stuff":

The time 15:25 is "five minutes before half 4"

"Fem minutter i halv fire"

So you round up to 16 before even halfway, what!?

They must have meant 9*10+2 for most of the countries. For French and Danish you would just remember the word for 90 instead of using logic to get there so they are actually quite 90+2.

@ObviouslyNotBanana Ninety-two → Nine-ty-two → 9x10+2 :troll: