• Ekky@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      17·
      2 days ago

      *Puts on glasses* Akchually, that’s only if you’re counting 10’s, since we count 1’s as decimal and 10’s in pairs of snes/snaes (20), hence fifty is half three snes or 3*20-0.5*20 = (3-0.5)*20 = 50.

      Or if you’re talking 1’s, aka. decimal, you’d just remove the snes part, since common math is in decimal anyway, so half 3 decimal would be 3*1-0.5*1 = 3-0.5 = 2.5.

      EDIT: Fun fact: 100, aka. “en hundrede/one hundred”, can therefore also be called “fems” or “fem snes/five snaes”. And then there’s the ones who actually say “in twenty” instead of “snes”, so it’d be “fem i tyvende”.

        • Ekky@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          Huh? TIL. Well, partly. Didn’t actively know about the “sinds”.

          So, does this mean that “snes” is just a load of bull, or are we talking different ages of counting systems? After all, just like the link explains “fyrre”, the Danish counting system seems as an amalgamation of multiple counting systems and words of the time.

        • Ekky@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          71·
          2 days ago

          Oh no, no game, that’s how you enable the dev tools in retro-future mode. :p

        • Ekky@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          2·
          1 day ago

          It’s just pre-imperial. We’ve left everything else behind for metric, but the snaes still roams the shadows of our counting system.

          Everyone knew what a snaes was and everyone measured in snaes enyway, it also happened to be about the amount that we stored fish and eggs as. So, instead of having to count all the fish, we simply asked for one snaes/box of fish. And if you needed 2,5 snaes of fish? well, then you simply asked for half three snaes.

          For a very interesting example of modern culture using such improvised counting systems, look no further than the USA’s obsession with measuring everything in football fields, elephants, etc…

          And for an example for saying “half x”? Ask anyone who has ever said “let’s meet at half six”.

      • cooltrainer_frank@lemmy.worldEnglish
        5·
        2 days ago

        Det ved jeg godt :)

        But it’s fun to show that meme off. Danish numbers are wild. My bad danish gets me mistaken numbers all the time

        • Ekky@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          3·
          2 days ago

          Tænkte det nok x)

          It’s just fun to blow some non-Danes’ minds every now and again. <3

          • Kanda@reddthat.comEnglish
            2·
            2 days ago

            Every time we take the ferry to get drunk our minds are blown by fem og halv treds

          • NochMehrG@feddit.orgEnglish
            5·
            2 days ago

            So that’s why Duolingo hides numbers from us! (And probably also why Danish people switch to English or German no matter if you start in Danish or not…)

      • TimeRonin@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 days ago

        I would really like to understand more, why do you simplify 320-0.520 as (3-0.5)*20? Is this system actually insightful into arithmetic? Is there a good tutorial about such and such?

        • Ekky@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          3·
          2 days ago

          Well, it is just arithmetics.

          The left side of the equation is just the natural expansion of the paranthesis to signify and drive home the point that we’re specifically talking half off 20.

          The middle is how it’s usually represented and follows best practices. Aka. Simplifying the equation without touching the variables and constants.

          The right side is the result for calculating the equation.

          I’m unsure of any tutorials regarding the danish counting system, though there’s bound to be some. :)

          Did I misunderstand the question?

      • techt@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 days ago

        puts on novelty slinky eye glasses

        Fascinating.

        Also, small thing:

        3*1 - 0.5*1 = 3 - 0.5 = 2.5 ----------------^