Re: The English/French counting system (WAS: number systems from conlangs)

Hi!

Isidora Zamora <isidora@...> writes:
> >Tell me about it.  The British use of, e.g., "half eight" to mean
> >"half PAST eight" drives me nuts.  I automatically think of it in terms of
> >the German "halb acht", which means SEVEN thirty, and therefore used to
> >show up an hour early for meetings with my British boss before I got
> >used to it.
>
> In Danish, "halv otte" (lit. "half eight") also means seven-thirty.  This
> took me some time to get used to.
After so much time studies, I'll throw a piece of (Southern) German
into the pot (I don't know the exact distribution of this) that
usually confuses Northern Germans (including me):

Additional to 'halb acht' (lit. 'half eight'), Southern German has:
    'viertel acht'
    (lit. 'quarter eight')
    = 'a quarter past seven' (sic!)

    'dreiviertel acht'
    (lit. 'three-quarters eight')
    = 'a quarter to eight'

And of course, the normal standard German forms are understood:
    'viertel nach acht'
    = 'quarter past eight'

...

And I don't know how widespread that is, but additional to the
usual
    'fünf vor halb acht'
    (lit. 'five before half eight')
    = 7:25

my dialect allows also to ten minutes:

    'zehn vor halb acht'
    (lit. 'ten before half eight')
    = 7:20

where you'd normally use 'zwanzig nach sieben' ('twenty after seven').

But definitely, this does not work with 'eleven'. :-) It is very
uncommon to use minute counts other than 'five' or 'ten' with 'vor
halb' or 'nach halb'.

**Henrik

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