quatre-vingts
quatre-vingts
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89 comments
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I think this actually roots in the problems of conversion to base ten from base twelve. Not sure though, maybe I remembered this wrong.
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Being lazy and not going to look it up. I can't help it to wonder if it's also based in Sumerian's base 60
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It's base 20.
80 in French is 4 x 20. A long time ago, 60 was "trois-vingt", 3 x 20. We still have a hospital in Paris called "Hopital des Quinze-Vingts", 15 x 20 because it used to have 300 beds.
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Oh, neat! Thanks for clearing this up.
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89 comments