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Meat187
Diese scheiß Katze

Registered: Dec 2007
Location: The Night's Plutonian Shore
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Sep-06-2009 15:07
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Meat187
Diese scheiß Katze

Registered: Dec 2007
Location: The Night's Plutonian Shore
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Sep-06-2009 15:18
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shaw
RIP

Registered: Jan 2005
Location: Intergalactic Mimosa Station
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Sep-06-2009 16:51
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Lira
Ancient BassAddict

Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Brasilia, Brazil
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| quote: | Originally posted by Meat187
But while we're in a Lira-thread, why the hell do the French count like idiots?!?!
74 = sixty-fourteen
85 = fourtwenties-five |
I've heard just one descent explanation for that. If you compare French to most other Latin languages (and, sometimes, other dialects of French), you'd expect "70", "80", and "90" to be "septante", "huitante", and "nonante", respectively. And, guess what? These words do exist, though they're restricted to Belgium and Switzerland.
So, why not stick to it?
Most likely, it's a matter of linguistic contact. Breton, for example, has a vigesimal numerical system: that is, instead of counting in 10's, they count in 20's. It's natural to suppose this may have had something to do with the numbers now used in Metropolitan French, because 30 and 50 are exceptions (50 is "half hundred" and 30 is a number related to 3). Languages don't necessarily borrow words directly - they can also borrow "meanings" and then translate them.
If you're sceptic about it, just show some mitleid. Or, should I say com-passion? (with-suffering)
___________________
Indiana Clones Upcoming Sets
[ I May Upload Something Someday ]
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Sep-06-2009 16:54
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Renegade
____________/

Registered: May 2001
Location: Prague, Czech Republic
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I think it probably comes back to "Theory of Mind" - that is, our innate capacity to attribute agency to other entities - and the fact that this capacity has evolved to be somewhat promiscuous in the sense that it's better to tricked by a false positive (i.e. assuming there is an agent present when in actual fact there isn't) than to be tricked by a false negative (i.e. assuming there isn't an agent present when in actual fact there is). It's a similar phenomenon to "pareidolia", where the evolutionary need to detect even the smallest change in facial expression has produced a kind of hyperactive facial-detection system in the brain, prone to detecting faces where they do not exist, like in the moon or emoticons like this -> .
For what it's worth, I think this innate tendency towards hyperactive agency detection also goes some way to explaining religious beliefs, where the mind is capable of effortlessly attributing an anthropic intellect to inanimate objects like mountains, or trees, or bronze idols or (more commonly among modern religions) a kind of free-floating agency that exists unattached to anything earthly at all. I suppose a less emotionally salient form of that kind of thinking is capable of giving rise to a belief (no matter how fleeting or subconscious) in things like "stubborn" cars, "theiving" ATMs and "stupid" toasters that can and should be verbally reproached as the need arises.
___________________
http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/
Last edited by Renegade on Sep-06-2009 at 18:11
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Sep-06-2009 18:05
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