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Re:Why are German numbers backwards? by DonaldFisk on Sunday November 28, 2021 @02:17PM (#29371924)
There's a nursery rhyme, Sing a Song of Sixpence, which has "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie", so numbers were once written out in English the same way they are in German.

I checked the King James version of the Bible (1605), which consistently writes out numbers in this way, e.g.

    Leviticus 12.4: And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days ...

    Genesis 11.16: And Eber lived four and thirty years, and begat Peleg ...

    Genesis 11.12: And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years ...
What about more recently? In David Copperfield (1850) by Charles Dickens, we still find:

    About five-and-twenty boys were studiously engaged at their books when we went in ..."

    ‘Six-and-thirty years ago, this day, my dear,’ said my aunt, as we walked back to the chariot, ‘I was married.
Re:Why are German numbers backwards? by FearNotDaniel on Sunday November 28, 2021 @03:20PM (#29372572)
I was at school in the north of England (Yorkshire) in the late 1970s/early 80s and there were a few schoolteachers, and some old folks, who still spoke this way.
Re:Why are German numbers backwards? by switch007 on Sunday November 28, 2021 @04:03PM (#29372998)
My grandmother occasionally spoke like that too (not Yorkshire)

I couldn’t figure out why she said it backwards occasionally

Re:Why are German numbers backwards? by selimthegrim on Sunday November 28, 2021 @02:30PM (#29372086)
Beat me to the blackbirds, but could it have a French source?

I guess America didn’t go with “Seven and four score years ago...” though

Re:Why are German numbers backwards? by chabad360 on Sunday November 28, 2021 @02:21PM (#29371966)
IIRC, the original Hebrew also writes most numbers this way.