Re: [Fwd: dozenal and hexadecimal digits]

At 10:05 am -0400 12/5/00, John Cowan wrote:
>This message comes from the Unicode list.
>
>Antoine Leca wrote:
>
>[esnipage]
>
>> By the way, I took advantage that in French numbers up to 16 have a special
>> name to design a system to "read" hexadecimal numbers (instead of spelling
>> when a digit from ten to fifteen appears):
Yes, it's often occurred to me that one could do just that.  :)

But I have some problems with Antoine's system. I find thar lazy students
who read, e.g. 32 as "thirty two" then vaguely think of it as 3*10+2
instead of 3*16+2.   I insist on their just reading the digits if we are
using hex.   But if we had a truly hexadecimal naming sysyem, 'twould be
better IMHO.

>> 0       zéro
>> 1       un
>> 2       deux
>> 3       trois
>> 4       quatre
>> 5       cinq
>> 6       six
>> 7       sept
>> 8       huit
>> 9       neuf
>> A       dix
>> B       onze
>> C       douze
>> D       treize
>> E       quatorze
>> F       quinze
>> 10      seize
>> 11      seize-et-un (that is the most difficult to remember)
Does this Gallic habit have to come over into hex?  :)

>> 12      seize-deux
>> 1B      seize-et-onze
Why?  Seems to be introducing a decimal naming convention into hex?
>> 1F      seize-quinze
>> 20      vingt
>> 2A      vingt-dix
>> 30      trente
Ach!  vingt means "twenty", not "thirty two" & trente is "thirty" not
"forty eight" etc.

If the French can cope with things like 'quatre-vignt dix-neuf' (99), then
I think they'd be quite able to cope with something more along the lines
the Welsh did in forming the modern decimal system, as opposed to the old
vigesimal. Thus (I'm dropping hyphens):

10   (un) seize
11    un seize (et) un
12    un seize deux
1A    un seize dix
1B    un seize onze
20    deux seize(s)
21    deux seize (et) un
22    deux seize deux
30    trois seize(s)
..
F0    quinze seize(s)
FF    quinze seize-quinze

Don't know what to do with 100 (16^2, i.e. 256.  Of course, if we stuck to
reading hex in byte-size chunks, the problem doesn't arise  :)

>>
>> But I never find myself to use it: habits are too much engraved,
>> and 71 is definitively "soixante-et-onze", and 18 is "dix-huit"
>> instead of "seize-huit" to me.
That's why IMO one doesn't want to use words like soixante etc.

Ray.



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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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