Comment by GotAnyMegadeth
11 years ago
When I was around 14 years old I was baby sitting a kid who was 3 or 4 or something. He came up to me and said "I bet I can say a bigger number than you." clearly proud of what he had just learnt in preschool. I accepted the challenge, he took a deep breath and said "Five hundred!", so I said "Five hundred and one". He looked determined and said "Ok then! Five hundred and fifty hundred and five hundred million hundred five hundred" (Or something that makes no sense like that). So I said "Five hundred and fifty hundred and five hundred million hundred five hundred, and one". He looked horrified and said "Can you just say 'and one' for any number?" I told him yes, and he said "Cool!".
And every since has that poor kid believed that "Five hundred and one and one" was a valid number.
It kind-of-is, it's just not particularly well-formed/ambiguous linguistically.
A bit like 99 in French: quatre-vingt-dix-neuf
four twenties and ten and nine
3 replies →
Peano says it is a valid number.