Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with counting

Mommy I'm twelveteen now!

Arbac — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:43:13 -0800

Why are the teen numbers (13-19) named differently than the rest of the numbers, and what's up with eleven and twelve? I heard a little kid trying to count today and they went ten, eleventeen, twelveteen etc and it got me wondering. Why are the numbers 11-19 named differently than the other numbers?

20-29 is all twenty + one through 9. 30-39 is the same all the way up to 100. So why is it eleven and not tenone?

Wikipedia says that 11 and 12 are derived from german words meaning ten and one left and two left respectively. Ok .. I guess I can understand that, so then what's going on with the teens?

A quality piss is at least 20 seconds

Christ, what an asshole — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:00:29 -0800

I'd like to learn how to count off seconds in my head with more precision. Are there any popular songs out there at exactly 60 or 120 bpm?

Counting Out Loud

l33tpolicywonk — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 22:15:29 -0800

What word(s) do non-US English speakers use to count out loud? Okay, so, in the USA, school kids and many adults keep count out loud by using the word "Mississippi" each second (as in "One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi, Three-Mississippi, etc). I assume this is because the word takes about a second to say. Does a similar tradition exist in other English speaking countries? Since I imagine they don't use the name of a US state / river, what words are used for this purpose?

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear turn around...and then what?

librarylis — Tue, 19 May 2009 02:10:03 -0800

What's your version of Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear Turn Around? Miss Susie had a steamboat? Cinderella dressed in yella? I am doing a short presentation on children's jump rope rhymes and count-out games. I've noticed that a lot of these have regional variations.

Some rhymes I've come across frequently include Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear Turn Around, Cinderella dressed in yella (made a mistake and kissed a fella), Bubble gum bubble gum in a dish, Not last night but the night before (24 robbers), Miss Mary Mack, etc. Variations on these and other rhymes definitely welcome!

I am aware of: this previous AskMe as well as this one, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, Brian Sutton-Smith, and a whole bunch of scholarly articles.

What's your variation? I'm looking for any type of jump rope rhyme, any type of counting rhyme (playground, not classroom), that sort of thing. It would help if you would explain what region you learned the rhyme in.

can I skip breakfast while counting calories?

Foam Pants — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:31:36 -0800

Am I sabotaging my diet by not eating breakfast? I have never been much of a breakfast eater. I recently started a calorie counting regime. I have found that it is MUCH easier to keep at or below the number of calories I am allowed to eat if I skip breakfast. Not only does that save calories for later in the day but I don't feel hungry in the morning, nor do I get hungry until lunchtime. If I do eat breakfast, I feel hungry again around 10am and it is torture until I get to eat lunch. I mean, my body has to use calories no matter when I eat them, right?

How to count piercings.

thirteenkiller — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 08:13:06 -0800

When counting piercings, should a woman's pierced ears (one hole in each ear, pierced at the same time and always used as a pair) be counted as one or two piercings?

How to tally votes in Excel?

jmitchell — Sun, 04 May 2008 16:28:19 -0800

How to tally votes in Excel? There is an Excel spreadsheet with many categories, with many votes per category. How do I get Excel to tally up the individual votes in a singe category? Each category is column, with the various votes per category listed as rows.

Excel String-Counting Help!

Alterscape — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 19:22:16 -0800

ExcelFilter: Help me count rows where one string appears in one column and a second string appears in a second! I have an Excel worksheet with the following setup:

Column A's contains a number of descriptions that include either string1, string2, or string3 -- a typical column A entry might be "(string1) some other text."

Column B's rows contain either StringA, StringB or StringC.

I want to write a formula that will count the number of rows where a cell in column A contains "string1" and the adjoining cell in column B contains "StringA."

The following code (from an excel help site) would work, except String1 never appears by itself in columnA, it's always part of a larger string.

=SUMPRODUCT(--(A16:A20="string1"),--(B16:B20="stringA"))

I've tried adding wildcards, as in:

=SUMPRODUCT(--(A16:A20="*string1*"),--(B16:B20="stringA"))

but no joy.

Help?

Couple : Several : A Few

breath — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 15:13:14 -0800

Several, couple, a few: occasionally, these words are used to indicate specific quantities of items (3, 2, and 4-5, respectively). Tell me about the etymology of these uses, and help me come up with more words (in English or other languages) that have this interesting specific/nonspecific duality.

5 5 5, this is for the guys who go 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9

jetskiaccidents — Sun, 31 Jul 2005 09:37:36 -0800

I'm looking for songs with counting or numbers (used more than once) in the lyrics. And by "numbers", I don't mean that someone sings, "Won't you take me to the 24th floor?" I want numbers repeated after one another...counting obviously works, but random numbers could work also.

Examples:
Violent Femmes - Kiss off [1, 1, 1 cause you left me, 2, 2, 2...]
Sleater-Kinney - Entertain (counting)
Le Tigre - Deceptacon (counting)
Architecture in Helinksi - Wishbone - [4 4-ever, 2 2-gether...]
Hockey Night - For Guys' Eyes Only [counting, probably my best example]

Non-examples:
Songs with numbers in the title, but with little use of numbers in the lyrics. [i.e. Bryan Adams - Summer of '69]

Mediocre example:
867-5309 Jenny

Songs with the classic "1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4!" beginning could work too, but I don't want too many of those. Yeah, I'm picky, but hopefully I can get some help?