Re: The English/French counting system (WAS: number systems from conlangs)

Henrik contributes:

>After so much time studies, I'll throw a piece of (Southern) German
>into the pot (I don't know the exact distribution of this) that
>usually confuses Northern Germans (including me):
>
>Additional to 'halb acht' (lit. 'half eight'), Southern German has:
>     'viertel acht'
>     (lit. 'quarter eight')
>     = 'a quarter past seven' (sic!)
>
>     'dreiviertel acht'
>     (lit. 'three-quarters eight')
>     = 'a quarter to eight'
>
>And of course, the normal standard German forms are understood:
>     'viertel nach acht'
>     = 'quarter past eight'
>
>And I don't know how widespread that is, but additional to the
>usual
>     'fünf vor halb acht'
>     (lit. 'five before half eight')
>     = 7:25
>
>my dialect allows also to ten minutes:
>
>     'zehn vor halb acht'
>     (lit. 'ten before half eight')
>     = 7:20
>
>where you'd normally use 'zwanzig nach sieben' ('twenty after seven').
>
>But definitely, this does not work with 'eleven'. :-) It is very
>uncommon to use minute counts other than 'five' or 'ten' with 'vor
>halb' or 'nach halb'.
My favorite's always been:

Fünf Minuten nach dreiviertel fünf for 4:50.

Kou