On 03/29/2015 02:19 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 28/03/2015 12:23, Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> 27 minutes long? No patience ;-)
>
> 27 minutes of wishing they would stop being in love with each other and
> get on with it.
>
>> I found this (short) answer:
>>
http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/3903/19th-century-english-texts-occasionally-use-germanic-style-number-words-such-as
>>
>>
>>
>> Not entirely satisfying though.
>
> I think I've got it and Andrel may be right. Henry V of England was a
> native English speaker and was the first to use English in government.
> One particular dialect, Chancery Standard, was used.
> So I'll give the benefit of the doubt to Andrel. And he has 27 seconds
> left on the subject of "Pi Day of the century"
>

Sorry was not at home for that many seconds. :(

So it may not be the whole truth but there is an element of:
the english say twenty four because the arabs say four and twenty and 
they write right to left whereas the english write left to right.

At least there is confusion enough to be able to claim that when in 
computer science class a teacher or a student claims that big-endian is 
much more logical. That will hopefully confuse them enough to refrain 
from absolute statements in the future.

Post a reply to this message