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

From:Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>
Date:Monday, September 22, 2003, 20:47
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

Replies

Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
Douglas Koller, Latin & French <latinfrench@...>