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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 (2.5) to say 90. 92 is then "tooghalvfems" (two and half to the five, or 2+2.5). 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.
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How did you guys even get to this thought process for saying this sort of thing? Why would you work in fractions for whole numbers in language to start? Is this a monarch thing like they fancied themselves a math wizard so they said it like it was a solution on countdown and others mimicked to keep them happy/sound smart themselves?
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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.
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Little fun-fact: We still have a trace of this left in Norwegian, where the most common way to say "1.5" is not "en og en halv" ("one and a half") but "halvannen" which roughly translates to "half second".
We abandoned the "half third", "half fourth" etc. very long ago (if we ever used them), but "halvannen" just rolls nicely off the tongue.
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How
Why
Dane here. My guess is utter madness resulting from a history of overdosing on fly agaric filtered through the urine of slaves, followed by a distressingly long period of Catholicism.
Frankly, it's a wonder that our ancestors didn't come up with an even MORE bizarre way of saying numbers and other things!
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When I'm in Denmark and have to say 92 I just say "kamelåså"
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Oh man, that takes me back.
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I love how halvfems exists but fems doesn't (and I guess it never did)
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This is making my brain hurt. I need to try reading a few more times but, if I am understanding it correctly, the old Danish way of saying it is mathematically incorrect?
Half-to-five == 2.5
2.5*20 == 50
...
Did I read that correctly?
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I'm not Danish, but I think he meant 4.5 instead of 2.5. It's like halfway from 4 to 5, not from 0 to 5.
A similar word exists in Finnish too, when going from 1 to 2: "puolitoista" translates to "half second", like halfway to the second number, and is commonly used to refer to 1.5, BUT without any multiplication shenanigans.
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Sorry to ping you a bunch with replies. I'm curious now, do you have unique numeral symbols for the numbers after 9?
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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.
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For a real explanation of this watch this illuminating video.
TL;DW According to the perons, it's based on counting sheep and from base 20. 1 score = 20 sheep. 2 score = 40 sheep.
To get to 50, you have 2.5 score, but they don't say "two and a half". They are quite Germanic and say "halfway to 3" (Germans do this too). So, 50 = half three score.The video also points out that English has (as the hodgepodge of a language it is) yet another remnant of Germanic languages: 13-19 are not "te(e)n-three to te(e)n-nine", but "three-te(e)n to nine-te(e)n", just like in German "drei-zehn bis neun-zehn".
It's quite easy to mock other languages, but there's always a reason for why things are the way they are. Think of Chesterton's fence.
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I agree with your broader point about linguistics, but Chesterton's fence has never sat right with me. Consider the inverse:
This annoying and unnecessary fence is an inconvenience, but since nobody can remember what it's for, we dare not remove it
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Chesterton's fence is a warning not to commit this logical error: I don't know what this fence is for, therefore I know there is no reason for it.
It doesn't say never to remove it. It means you should try and figure out why it's there and ask around before removing it.
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It's just a logic exercise that advicates forethought when enacting change. The bigger problem is people taking parables and thought experiments as gospel, faithfully adhering to the text without considering it's intent.
More people need to read Asimov's Foundation
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I honestly don't understand what's insightful about it. It encourages a functional viewpoint that results in you inventing proposed uses for something that is a vestige of an inefficiency. Justifying something useless isn't curiosity, it's just masturbation. You should identify how a structure interacts with it's current environment. There's a reason functionalism is considered worthless in sociology.
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there's always a reason for why things are the way they are
Of course, no one is saying that the Danes were so drunk that they simply wanted to make their numbering so much different than everyone else. The problem is that they don't want to change it, probably because "it has always been this way" or something.
Even Norwegian, which was historically more like Danish, changed to using "normal" counting in the 1950s. So it can be done, but Danes seemingly don't want to change, despite the fact it makes their language harder to learn/use.
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Change it to what? Twenty-one? One Twenty? Four times twenty and one? Four time twenty plus ten and five? You could go the Germanic way, the Anglo-Saxon way, or the French way. Probably there are more ways to express numbers.
It's not as straight forward as imperial to metric, where metric is logical and imperial isn't. A vigesimal system is logical, just like binary or hexadecimal.
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It's a shame that, when Norwegians changed their counting system, the suggestion of using "to-ti" didn't catch on for 20. It would be analogous to saying "twoty" in English.
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This comment makes me so sleepy...
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I just tried to say tentyfive like four times in a row and I couldnt speak for 20 seconds after that. Thank you.
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but there’s always a reason
By and large, there's a reason for everything, but it's just not always a good reason.
If I have 100 rocks and take away 8, the answer to how many rocks I Have should not require a math problem. We're counting, not making change. If your counting system isn't decimal-based, you're no better off than the US using imperial measurements.
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I'm German and our way of counting is genuinely stupid. 121 would translate to "onehundred one and twenty". You'd think it's just a matter of practice but errors related to mixing up digits are statistically more common in German speaking regions. Awesome when it comes to stuff like calculating medication dosages and such. Like it's not a huge issue but it's such an unneccessary layer of confusion.
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Its so annoying with phone numbers as well, depending how someone pronounces is. My mom always says phone numbers in 2 digits, like 06 12 34 56 78 (06 twelve fourandthirty sixandfifty eightandseventy) and you just get confused because you want to type in the first number pronounced
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Yes! I'm German and I hate it. It's also very inconvenient when entering numbers into a spreadsheet or something, because you have to know the whole number before you can start typing it.
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As a non-native working in German, the numbers are one of the trickiest parts.
My jobs generally involve a lot of math and discussions of numbers, and I often struggle with swapping numbers around in my head. Especially because when you get to bigger numbers people often switch between (or use a combination of) listing individual digits left-to-right and saying multi-digit numbers.
The though is when you occasionally notice natives mess it up!
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My experience living in The Netherlands (which has a similar system) as a non-native whose mothertongue is from the Romance branch is that you eventually get used to it. I think that's because as your language skills improve you just stop interpreting the parts of the number individually and handle hearing and speaking those "nastier" blocks of two digits as if the whole block is a language expression.
Even better the apparently flip-flopping between one way of ordering digits and another one in longer numbers (for example: "two thousand, five hundred and two and ninety") actually makes the strategy of "everything between 0 and 99 is processed as an expression" viable (i.e. "two thousand" + "five hundred" + "two and ninenty"), whilst I'm not so sure that would be possible if instead of just memorizing 100 numerical language expressions we had to do it with 1000 or more.
(If you're not a French native speaker and you learn the language you might notice something similar when at some point your mind switches from interpreting "quatre-vingt" as "four twenty" to just taking it in whole block as an expression that translates to eighty)
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The older generation in Norway also uses that format. I usually tell them that we aren't under German occupation anymore, so they should use the sensible format.
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Funny thing: it is the correct way to count like that, also in english. Four-teen, eight-teen etc. They just turn that around beginning with twenty. How obscure is that shit, when you really think about it?
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It just feels weird saying it the other way tho
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Ehh, i'm not giving France a pass either.
The answer to 100 - 8 should not be four twenties and a twelve. We're counting, not making change.
French counting is bunk. Way, Way, better then Denmark though apparently
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I think the first picture jumps over a little bit of calculation:
9 x 10 + 2
2 + 9 x 10
p.s. The third one makes total sense!
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Norway used to count like the Germans, but switched after the introduction of the telephone. There were simply too many mistakes when telling the numbers to the operators, that a change was mandated.
Old people might still use the 2+90 variant though, but it is not very common.
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So now you're calling me old? THE NERVE!
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to everyone who reads this dudes comment and starts imagining 75 year old grandmas saying it: i’m 30 and say 2+90, and it’s still very much a thing.
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Fun fact, english used to count the same way as german, and it still has the numbers in "reverse" from 13 to 19.
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Eleven and twelve kinda are as well. They literally mean "one left" (ain-lif) and "two left" (twa-lif) with the "over ten" being implied.
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I’m 43 years old and this is the first time I’ve seen an explanation of these numbers. Thank you!
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German's my first language and I am kinda proficient in english but I never realized that the english numbers 13 to 19 work like like ours...
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That meme is so lame. 92 in Danish is two and a half fives. The 20 part is old-fashioned and literally nobody has used that since the 1800s.
2 and a half fives' twentieth = outdated cringe. 2 and a half fives = actually how it is said today.
It's still a friggin nightmare to get someone's Phone number verbally, though.
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That only makes it worse.
Two and a half fives = 12.5.
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More like 2 and half fives. Half five is our word for 90. So in essence we say 2 and 90 but the word 90 is half five.
80 is fours
70 is half fours
60 is threes
50 is half threes
40 is forty
30 is thirty
20 is twenty
10 is ten.
Oh and a 100 is a hundred. So I dunno what happened between 50 and 90, but I'm sure there is a funny story behind that somewhere.
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Dane here. No one actively thinks of 90 (halvfems, 2 and a half fives) as a mathematical expression. Is is just a word for 90. So we say 2+90 like Germany.
Would it have been nice if that word meant "9 tens", yes, but Danish is a just a stupid language where you have to learn a bunch of things by heart unfortunately.
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Exactly
Base 20, or "vigesimal".
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French is pretty stupid too. Smart Belgium with french as national tongue only changed that number aberration: They use the made-up word "octante" for eighty and "nonante" for ninety, instead of "quatre-ving" (four-twenty) or "quatre vingt dix" (four-twenty , ten) in proper french
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What if I told you that all words are made up?
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In Belgium we use nonante, not octante, that is, iirc only used in Switzerland. That means we at least don’t use quatre-vingt onze etc.
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oh my bad.. so they went "septante" "nonante" and kept the "quatre vingt" in the middle.. this is more weird
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Dunno, I prefer french to spanish tbh. Maybe its because basque is like French.
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I'm actually impressed by this map. The French speaking part of Switzerland is not only differentiated from the German speaking part, it is also differently coloured than France, since Swiss French has more sensible numbers.
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Quatre-vingt douze isn’t incredibly onerous when you use it in practice.
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Quatre-vingt dix huit or quatre-vingt dix neuf are definitely more of a mouthful and illustrate the point better.
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hard agree i actually think france’s method of counting is pretty intuitive
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Agreed. Fourscore and twelve just works (English used to use this, at least in formal speech and writing).
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Yeah France is fine
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French language uses math to speak numbers if anyone is wondering about France.
Edit: Apparently I wasn't precise enough for the dude below. It starts at 70 and ends at 99 every time you get to those numbers. De rien, tabarnak.
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Not quite. They just have remnants of an old base 20 system that kicks in for specific numbers.
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Je le sais, je parle français .-.
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Finnish is actually 9*10+2
Yhdeksänkymmentäkaksi
Yhdeksän = nine
Kymmentä = of ten
Kaksi = two
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Ugh okay here's another "Danes shouldn't be allowed to make number stuff":
The time 15:25 is "five minutes before half 4"
"Fem minutter i halv fire"
So you round up to 16 before even halfway, what!?
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That makes perfect sense to me though. In Swedish we'd say fem i halv fyra. Five minutes to half four.
But in English half four would be short for half past four. I guess.
Counting like the Danish, however, that is an abomination.
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Same in Dutch,
"Vijf voor half vier"
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Yeah the Dutch way of saying time is also messed up, I still have to think about it for a moment every time.
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I'm very Danish and refuse to adhere to this nonsense. It's pronounced "three twenty-five".
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Jeg elsker dig for det
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You can say the same in Poland. "Za pięć w pół do czwartej."
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Note to self: For learning a scandinavian language - learn Swedish instead of Danish.
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If you learn swedish, you can speak danish. Just put a hot potato in your mouth
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Bit of a sidenote.
Are the English numbers 11-20 influencer by the base 20 system of french back when we had French speaking royalty? And for some reason they're the only unique "digits" for lack of a better term that survived because once we get to twenty it's a pure base 10 system with a consistent pattern throughout.
I'm hoping someone more knowledgeable than me can tell me if my thinking is correct or not.
Edit: thanks for the history lessons, were interesting to read through.
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No, 1-12 are influenced by the old base 12 Germanic/Norse system, which is why -teen starts at thirteen, same as in German (11: elf, 12: zwölf, 13: dreizehn, 14: vierzehn & so on)... The -teen for 1x in english is also a carryover from this, being threeten, fourten, fiveten etc. with only numbers over 20 having their orders reversed - German has something similar with "und" only appearing in numbers over 20. English did historically too, eg. "four and twenty blackbirds".
Base 20 was historically used for large numbers though, eg "four score and seven years" by Abraham Lincoln, which was a poetic way of saying 87 inspired from Psalms 90:10, which says "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." in the King James Version, which reflects that using base 20 for large numbers (and not just 80) was not uncommon in the 17th century.
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Seems like they're not, although I get your thought process. If we take Old English (which was English before the Norman conquest) and modern Swedish (since Sweden was never conquered by anyone from France or the Romans) as comparisons, we have
Eleven: OE endleofan, Swedish elva Twelve: OE twelf, Swedish tolv Thirteen: OE threotiene, Swedish tretton Fourteen: OE feowertiene, Swedish fjortun
I think you can see the pattern. These actually all have similar common ancestors going into Proto-Germanic, so they're way older than the French influence on English.
Since other Indo-European languages like German and Russian do the same thing as English where the line between "one word numbers" and "two word numbers" is 20 to 21, I suspect that originates waaaaay back in the history of these languages
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They must have meant 9*10+2 for most of the countries. For French and Danish you would just remember the word for 90 instead of using logic to get there so they are actually quite 90+2.
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So do you mean to suggest "quatre-vingt-dix" just means 90 and doesn't also mean "four-twenty-ten"?
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Well quatre-vignt-dix is literally translated to “four twenty ten” (why not just nine ten? because historically french evolved with a base 20 counting system).
But when a french person hears that, they don’t hear those numbers, to them it just means ninety.
Just like an english person won’t hear. “four-ty”, and think “four-ten” “oh that’s 40”. Because “fourty” was originally “four-ten” (written differently because old english so I rewrote in modern for simplicity) and got shortened down.
To them “fourty” is just a word that means 40. Just like to metropolitan french people “ quatre-vignt-dix” is just a word that means 90.
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@ObviouslyNotBanana Ninety-two → Nine-ty-two → 9x10+2 :troll:
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Isn't it mostly 9*10+2? 9 * ty (implying 10) + 2.
Even german does that, although weirdly the way you can't just write down long numbers reasily one by one: Zwei (2) und ((and) neun- (9) -zig (*10)).
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We can also do 2+90 here in the UK. There's a nursery rhyme about "four and twenty blackbirds" that I think the kids are still learning.
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shakes fist THE DANES!
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Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie...
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97
4x20 + 10 + 7
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Your coloration took an innocent map of Europe and somehow made the thumbnail look dirty. Good job!
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The map is wrong, Czechs can do both 2+90 and 90+2, I am not sure if it's regional within the country, or depends on the context, but they definitely use both versions
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Four score and a dozen.
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93= Four score and a baker's dozen.
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Is this a Michael Hobbes joke?
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That's four goddamn numbers in a row!
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Oh yeah, one of the pics that inspired me to study French. I was dreading the numerals but it's not that bad. You count tens and twenties and sometimes they're special. And numbers below 20 have specific names, but that's kinda true in most languages.
A lot of languages have weird corner cases. (Like, in Finnish most numbers are perfectly regular. Except 11-19 which are not "one-ten-and-x" but rather "x-of-the-second". I'm sure there's a reasonable etymological reason. At least they're not "teens".)
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And the French way isn't rotten? Lmao
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It's bad, but not danish bad
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