I thought people counted by tens

[Alpo]

Because we have 10 fingers. So you got 10 then 20, which is 2 10s, 30 which is three tens, etc.

 

I just saw a copy of a book. The book is in French. The title

 

    Le tour de monde en quatre-vingts jours

 

I was using my vast knowledge of French to translate

The travel of world in four something something

 

So I decided that was around the world in 40 days. But that didn't sound right. So I looked up the book. It's around the World in 80 Days. So I plugged quatre-vingts into Google translate and it told me that in French that was 80. But that didn't make any sense because it obviously started with four.

 

So I translated quatre. I was right, it means four. So then I translated vingts. It means 20s.

 

So the French word for 80 directly translates as "four twenties".

 

The French don't count by 10, they count by 20?

 

[Texas Joker]

Depends.  a fortnight is 14 days. The sumerians used base 12 because that's how many phalange segments you have on your hand. 

 

 

[Alpo]

Just now, Texas Joker said:

Depends.  a fortnight is 14 days. The sumerians used base 12 because that's how many phalange segments you have on your hand. 

 

 

Interesting. I have 14. Three on each of my four fingers which makes 12, then two more on my thumb making 14.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

Sure they count by tens. That's why they use twenties, which are two tens.

 

Being metric also, they count a lot more by tens than we do.

 

 

 

[Texas Joker]

@alpo count the segments using your thumb 

[Texas Joker]

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

Oh man, this goes way back, didn’t know if I could find it.

 

you assume too much with your ten counting.

 The French are just plain different , do you agree? They had a twenty based counting system. If you think of counting on your fingers, think about bending the knuckle and straightening the finger. The word for it is something like vigntil.

 And the wee bit of support I found on the web?
 

Quote

This is the Celtic way of counting, using base 20, as opposed to the Roman way of counting in base 10. It is an element of Gaulish culture that survived the Roman conquest of Gaul.

I learned this from a professor of Romance Philology (the roman derived languages.) a factoid I thought I would never again use.

 

as anyone who ever studied French knows, 80, 90, are quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt-dix, But in Belgian and Swiss French, they are octante,  nonante. Oops no hyphens.

 

Edited March 20 by Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984

[Alpo]

39 minutes ago, Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984 said:

 The French are just plain different , do you agree?

mais oui monsieur. les français sont, comme on dit, fous comme des crottes de singe - des bananes.

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

Mais certainement, Mon ami.

[watab kid]

there was a huge push for the metric system in the very early 70s , i had to use both systems at that time in school but once i was out in the real world the metric was all but useless - except a few projects i had that involved german companies and a swiss one , mostly machinery to be installed in my projects , but ....didnt rea;lly need the equipment i had to buy in school to complete them - the conversions were easy , 

[Trailrider #896]

NASA officially went metric in the 1970's, but most U.S. manufacturing stayed with English units. This led to loss of a Mars probe, when JPL was using metric and Martin-Marietta was using English.  They had laid off 3,000 of us in 1989, so I was no longer involved. First thing I'd have done had I still been on the program would have been to call JPL and ask what system they were using! I learned metric in high school in the 1950's, but I still cannot think in metric, and have to convert, especially when watching SpaceX velocity and altitude figures which are in metric. Have to multiply by .625 to get miles and mph. 

[Marshal Mo Hare, SASS #45984]

29 minutes ago, Trailrider #896 said:

NASA officially went metric in the 1970's, but most U.S. manufacturing stayed with English units. This led to loss of a Mars probe, when JPL was using metric and Martin-Marietta was using English.  They had laid off 3,000 of us in 1989, so I was no longer involved. First thing I'd have done had I still been on the program would have been to call JPL and ask what system they were using! I learned metric in high school in the 1950's, but I still cannot think in metric, and have to convert, especially when watching SpaceX velocity and altitude figures which are in metric. Have to multiply by .625 to get miles and mph. 

.621 is better.

[bgavin]

For the last 50 years, I operate in Base 16...