20-counting in Danish and beyond

[ECOLING at aol.com]

In Danish

to og halv-fems

(I do not speak Danish, my spelling will be wrong and
Swedish-influenced, but approximately that)

means 92.
Literally,

two and half-FIVES

(FIVES would be 5x20 = 100
half-FIVES is half way from 4x20 to 5x20,
or in other words 4+1/2 x 20 or 90.

Those interested in sheep-scoring numbers might
consult the paper "Hocus Pocus Nursery Rhymes"
by Mary Ann Campbell and Lloyd Anderson,
in Papers from the (Nth) Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society,
1976, where some versions of "Hickory Dickory Dock"
are brought together for comparison, and similar matters.

Or the following bibliography:

Ellis, A. J. 1877.  The Anglo-cymric Score.
     Transactions of the Philological Society pp.316-372
Bolton, Henry Carrington. 1888.  The Counting-Out Rhymes of Children.
     Their antiquity, origin, and wide distribution.
     London.  123pp.
Eckenstein, Lina. 1906.  Comparative Studies in Nursery Rhymes.
     London.
Opie, Iona and Peter. 1951.  The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.

Collins, Vere H. 1959. A Book of English Proverbs.
     London, Longman's

Best wishes,
Lloyd Anderson