That only makes it worse.
Two and a half fives = 12.
Comment on Something's wrong with denmark
Nangijala@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
That meme is so lame. 92 in Danish is two and a half fives. The 20 part is old-fashioned and literally nobody has used that since the 1800s.
2 and a half fives’ twentieth = outdated cringe. 2 and a half fives = actually how it is said today.
It’s still a friggin nightmare to get someone’s Phone number verbally, though.
JacksonLamb@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Nangijala@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
More like 2 and half fives. Half five is our word for 90. So in essence we say 2 and 90 but the word 90 is half five.
80 is fours
70 is half fours
60 is threes
50 is half threes
40 is forty
30 is thirty
20 is twenty
10 is ten.
Oh and a 100 is a hundred. So I dunno what happened between 50 and 90, but I’m sure there is a funny story behind that somewhere.
hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
You’re just digging yourself and Denmark into deeper hole. It’s fucked up and you know it
Nangijala@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
I never claimed otherwise. I’m just tired that this 92 meme is using outdated language (or numbers rather) to make a point that may have been reasonable to make in the 1800s, but not today. Doesn’t mean our number system is any less retarded today. If anything, I’m just adding on to the fact that Danes are notoriously lazy with the Danish language and will cut corners with all words and sentences the same way Americans cut corners when they chop everybody’s name up into bite sized nicknames. For us, though, it’s more like slurring the end og a word and flat out ignoring letters that are very clearly there in the word.
Woe is the poor asshole who decides to immigrate here and attempts to learn the cancerous gargle that is our language.
That said, it is still the best language to curse in and when used in poetry, it can be downright majestic.
But yeah, our curses are superior to all words in the English language.
My favourite for life will always be kræftedme = cancer eat me - usually uttered in a sentence to underline how pissed off you are and how serious you are.
JacksonLamb@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
More like 2 and half fives.
That would be an indeterminate number that starts at 7 and goes up by 2.5 increments depending on how many half fives there are (since in this version it’s not specified).
7, 9.5, 12, 14.5…
I love this. I thought English had some crazy aspects but this is next level.
petersr@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Dane here. No one actively thinks of 90 (halvfems, 2 and a half fives) as a mathematical expression. Is is just a word for 90. Would it have been nice if that word meant “9 tens”, yes, but Danish is a just a stupid language where you have to learn a bunch of things by heart which sucks.
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
How would you say trump is like Hitler? Do you have to describe the Holocaust in few words within a long ass German style word?
bstix@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
Easy. We often use idioms for comparisons.
One old way would be: “Trump and Hitler are both 2/3 yards from one piece” which means “They’re cut from the same (bad) fabric”.
Fabric was cut in an old measurement"alen" which was 2 foot or 2/3 yards, so simply stating the length would be understood as fabric, similar to how everyone knows that a 2x4s is a piece of wood and such.
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Ah yes! I understand the culture fully now!
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Denmark = outdated cringe
Just kidding neighbor, I love you all
Nangijala@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
Found the swede xD ❤️
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Let’s grab a rød pølse and some surströmming
Dasus@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Exactly
Base 20, or “vigesimal”.
1337@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
drmoose@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s breaking my brain too, what is this cryptography lmao
Nangijala@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
When you have to write down numbers, but the person reading you the numbers speaks slowly 💀
Them: “Two…”
Me: “2”
Them: “… and fifty”
Me: “…
2- 52”Them: “Six…”
Me: “6”
Them: “… and twenty.”
Me: “
6- 26”🫠
GoosLife@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No, in Danish the “half five” part means the same as “half past 4” on the clock: 4.5.
Then the part that most people omit nowadays, sindstyvende, means times 20.
(Half past 4) times 20 = 90.