• leftzero@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    8·
    5 days ago

    Trolls traditionally count like this: one, two, three…many, and people assume this means they can have no grasp of higher numbers.

    They don’t realize that many can be a number.

    As in: one, two, three, many, many-one, many-two, many-three, many many, many-many-one, many-many-two, many-many-three, many many many, many-many-many-one, many-many-many-two, many-many-many-three, LOTS

    — Sir Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms

    • pyre@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      5 days ago

      that’s amazing because I’m pretty sure he probably based it on real life; there are tribes that count very similarly to this (also covered in Ifrah’s book). there are languages with words for one, two and many, or 1-4 and many, but they can use combinations like two-one to mean three and two-two to mean four etc.