Koen Verbeeck (8/8/2013)
Sean Lange (8/8/2013)
This whole English thing is the reason we American's don't know any other languages. All the others have actual rules that you follow all of the time. In English our rules are more like guidelines. We follow them most of the time, except for all the exceptions. It takes more than a lifetime to master such a complex and loose set of rules. We just don't have time to learn another language, and we would hate to realize that the other languages make far more sense than our own. :hehe:Not all languages make sense. In Dutch we say some of the numbers backwards. For example, we say 62 as 'twee en zestig', which translates to 'two and sixty'.
Just to confuse the hell out of everyone trying to learn our language 😀
And especially useful when you are dictating a phone number or house number over the phone...
You think "twee en zestig" is bad? Just try "dhà fhear air tri fichead" ("two man after three score" for "62 men") which (apart from spelling changes between the two) is what the Gaels in Scotland and Ireland put up with. I think the idea of putting the number all in one place instead of sticking the thing being counted in the middle of the number is a brilliant invention, and you Dutch have had it for ages while it's only been allowed in Gàidhlig for a couple of decades (and is nowhere near universal yet). And our dual number has merged with the singular instead of the plural (and a number like 62 counts as 2, for those purposes).
Tom