For a Welsh learner this has turned into a most informative thread. Diolch I bawb
And thatâs clearly related to the well known Scottish idiom âthe nooâŠâ.
Can you help my aging memory? I thought I had read or heard that the above refered to numbers up to⊠well, I couldnât remember how many and I kept raising it as more and more seemed to be covered. Now, having met groups of 100 or more, I suspect the whole idea was imagination and any number up to infinity would still be gath or plentyn⊠am I right? Oh and, remembering a certain song, adjectives like coch, as well as goch when female, also became cochion or gochion when many. Gwynion is another example. Is this only in literature and music?
Now thereâs a sentence no one is likely to need in real life!
Either that or I was going so fast I missed it!
After about pymtheg, some people will introduce the plural, but also with an of:
Saith ci - Seven dog
Un ar ugain o gƔn/Dauddeg un o gƔn - Twenty-one of dogs
Itâs not compulsory, but itâs conventional and gives your Welsh a bit of polish.
One exception is children. The of business starts at two:
un plentyn
dau o blant
Should the object be after âunâ?
So âun (whatever) ar hugainâ.
As in âpum munud ar hugain wedi triâ for example.
Just off the top of my head (i.e. disclaimer - I may be remembering incorrectly!), itâs âun (whatever) ar hugainâ if you are using the traditional counting method (i.e. un ar hugain), but with an âoâ if youâre using the âmodernâ counting method (i.e. dau ddeg un o gwn)
Mojito ydyâr mwya blasus
Och ayeâŠ!
All our memories are ageing, @henddraig
Above a certain number (opinions vary - look in a grammar book, there should be a good one around somewhere) the construction switches from [number + singular noun] to [number + o + plural noun]
So pedwar ceffyl four horses but deuddeg o geffylau twelve horses.
Itâs all very confusing, I agreeâŠ
Yes, even in my limited (mainly the radio) experience that is common. Maeân pum munud ar hugain i chwech for: itâs twenty five to six.
Yes, un ci ar ugain works, too. I would certainly say un ci ar ddeg ar ugain, but I havenât a clue why I would say un ar ugain o gĆ”n. But I would. Just peronal preference, I suppose.
Yes indeed. The language police years ago now tried to get rid of this system (too tricky for learners, see? - though I havenât noticed any other language in the world patronising learners by changing its system of numerals to make it easier for them, have you?) by âreplacingâ it with the decimalised system made up by Sergeant Clipboard, but Iâm glad to say that the true system lives on, especially in things like time.
It so much simpler in English - not
Replacing numbers, like units, causes much dispute! When the SI (System International) did a major âupdateâ back when, the French were livid because the Curie was replaced by the Bequerel. There was some sense in objecting, the new unit was so tiny that MegaBq was about the commonest used! But the French were objecting for reasons nothing to do the Science and, in fairness, the Curie was based on an out-of-date measure of the activity in a gram of radium, as I recall! I pointed out to a sweet Fenchman that M. Bequerel was entirely French whereas the Curies were half Polish, and in fact it was Marie nee Sklodovska is by far the best known! The Americans just ignore all this and still use units like miles in scientific papers!
Fi piaâr mojito hwnnwâŠ
I think theyâre right to, actually. I think the metric system is overrated.
There. Iâve said it!
Iâd prefer SM after that Fi, you know @aran. Subject, and all thatâŠ
But one does hear it without as well in this phrase, so I wouldnât go to war over it. Probably.
and a proper Welsh mile should be 9000 paces each of 3 welsh feet (9000 cam or 27000 troedfedd) and a troedfedd should be about 9 inches not 12.
If we reintroduced Welsh miles 120km/hr would still be legal in a 20mph area (not suggesting thatâs a good idea).