Greetings from Denmark! I've bought a Canadian whiskey to see if it's possible to make good cocktails with in place of Bourbon. That is probably my most difficult boycott of them all... Man's gotta have his alcohol.
We actually still say "halvanden" in Danish too. Everything else is not used (except for halvfems which means 90...)
No idea. We probably had a period where we traded a lot with the French and got influenced by the vigesimal system that way, creating the abomination of a Frankenstein monster we have today.
- Half to the five = (5-0.5) = 4.5
- "Sindstyve" = multiplied by 20
- 4.5*20
- Two and half to the five multiplied by twenty = 2+(5-0.5)*20 = 2+4.5*20 = 2+90 = 92
The reason is that the Danish numbering system is based on a vigesimal (base-20) system instead of the decimal system. Why is a good question but it might have been influenced by French during a time where numbers from 50-100 is less frequently used, making them prone to complexity. The fractions simply occur since you need at least one half of twenty (10) to make the change from e.g 50 to 60 in a 20-based system.
Even worse. 90 in old Danish is "halvfemsindstyve" but it is rarely used today. The "sinds" part is derived from "sinde" means multiplied with but it is not in use in Danish anymore. That leaves halvfems, meaning half to the five (which is not used alone anymore) and tyve meaning twenty (as it still does).
We are in current Danish shortening it to halvfems which actually just means "half to the five" in old Danish (4.5) to say 90. 92 is then "tooghalvfems" (two and half to the five, or 2+4.5). The "sindstyve" part (multiplied with 20) fell out of favour.
So we at least have some rules to the madness. Were just not following them at all anymore.
Edit: Minor old Danish math correction.
Jeg tror jeg kan få en blank check jeg bare kan skrive et vilkårligt tal på hvis mine andre kolleger i teamet også siger op som de snakker om de vil :p
Aner det ikke, halvdelen af mit team er på vej ud af døren. Det bliver et kæmpe problem for firmaet hvis vi alle siger op. But not my problem!
Jeg fik en fuckfinger i lønforhøjelse på trods af alt det ros jeg fik for sidste års arbejde og det nye ansvarsområde jeg skal udfylde i år, så jeg har nu en jobsamtale ved konkurrenten på mandag.
Hvis det er neat whiskey så tyer jeg også selv oftest til en single malt Scotch, det er bare bedre ;)
En Bourbon har dog en sødme og nogle noter af vanilje og nødder som gør dem særdeles velegnet til cocktails. Årsagen er bl.a. det tørre klima de laves i, hvilket der ikke er mange steder i verden der kan replikere. Man kan måske kompensere med fx lidt nødde bitter sammen med en canadisk whiskey, men det får jeg testet i weekenden.
Ved du hvad, jeg spørger min lokale alkohol pusher til råds her en af dagene. Jeg er nede på under en halv flaske Bourbon og håber der findes erstatninger...
No, we use the same numeral symbols as everyone else. We just pronounce it in the most unintuitive manner possible.
I can imagine that we once had symbols representing the base 20 system but standardised at some point to decimal symbols. I though haven't encountered any piece of history to back that up.