En réponse à Carsten Becker :
>Many thanks. Did I mention I have never learnt Latin? I think I didn't. Now
>you know. Having threee topics on the same subject is a little bit
>difficult, it's up to the line break in the header of the original message.
>Sorry. I'm writing to the topic I started yesterday now. For you English
>speakers
Just for the record: I am *not* an English speaker! English is only my L2.
I am French in both blood and nationality. And French *never* had units
before the tens.
> it took a while to get used to the tens after the ones, but IIRC
>you had that in English as well, it's just some 125 years ago or so. Vice
>versa, it was difficult for me to get used to English "half past x" meaning
>"half after x" not "half to x". I didn't know that you can say "half x" in
>Britain as well.
It took me a while in English to get used to the idea of telling minutes
before hours. In French we tell first hours, then minutes. For instance:
- half past one: une heure et demie (meaning "one hour and (one) half (hour)")
- a quarter past one: une heure et quart (meaning "one hour and (one)
quarter (of hour)")
- a quarter to one: une heure moins le quart (meaning "one hour minus the
quarter (of hour)")
- ten to one: une heure moins dix (meaning "one hour minus ten (minutes)")
I find this system of adding and substracting minutes *after* the hours
much clearer than the English way.
Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.