Post #2153442
2026-05-06 05:57 UTC
https://reddit.com/r/PeterExplainsTheJoke/comments/1t4hmb7/petahh/
i feel like this entire "explain the joke" comment thread misunderstands why "555,555" is "scary" in german specifically
as i see it, it's less "oh no, long word" and more that german numerals jump around in orders of magnitude, you basically need to say "five hundred five and fifty thousand five hundred five and fifty"
tbf it is reddit i'm talking about
Replies (1)
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@fleuron@mas.to 2026-05-07 19:10
@rnd@toot.cat yeah, making this the same number makes a key point less poignant: in order to say 21, we say "one-and-twenty". There is an association (of course) advocating for a change: https://zwanzigeins.jetzt/ It's called twenty-one. It looks like a rather silly word in german. I've been doing math as a native german speaker for a large part of my life and this quirk KEEPS ANNOYING ME. For decades! Please can we stop with the inconsistency.