As much as I love shitting on the French for being terrible with numbers (seriously, how the fuck is the word for ‘99’ ‘four-twenties, a ten, and a nine’?!?) this one seems intentional so you can feel when you run out.
Because way back when, before sensible systems, they used base-20, and despite now running base-10, the base-20 is stuck in the language.
Edit it’s sort of in most languages actually, not just to that extent. I mean, English has “twenty-one”, but no “onety-one”. 1-20 have their own numbers in most languages I think, and after twenty you just repeat the first 10 and add whatever tens you like, whereas the French sometimes repeat the first 20 and add an amount of twenties
As much as I love shitting on the French for being terrible with numbers (seriously, how the fuck is the word for ‘99’ ‘four-twenties, a ten, and a nine’?!?) this one seems intentional so you can feel when you run out.
The funny thing is that in Switzerland they commonly say nonante neuf. So it’s not like there is no word for 90
Someone tried to improve the French language and predictably the French were having none of it.
Because way back when, before sensible systems, they used base-20, and despite now running base-10, the base-20 is stuck in the language.
Edit it’s sort of in most languages actually, not just to that extent. I mean, English has “twenty-one”, but no “onety-one”. 1-20 have their own numbers in most languages I think, and after twenty you just repeat the first 10 and add whatever tens you like, whereas the French sometimes repeat the first 20 and add an amount of twenties