New Counting Method

 The new counting method is a changed way of describing the numbers between 20 and 100.

The old way of counting gave, for example, 21, 22, 23 as pronunciation twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, while the new way was to be twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.

In 1949, the Telegraph Board wrote in a letter to the Ministry of Transport and Communications that the reading of figures should follow the order in which the figures were written. The Telegraph Board had carried out a study which showed that writing down the numbers gave considerably less error in the number read first, such as fifty-three for 53. The new method of counting was discussed in a professional committee which was the forerunner of the Language Council. The case was sent out for consultation and the responses to the consultation certainly provided the greatest support for the new scheme. On 22 November 1950, the Storting joined the new scheme. The new counting method was introduced on 1 July 1951. Telegraph director Sverre Rynning-Tønnesen is considered the architect behind the new counting method.

In NRK, the employees are obliged to use the new counting method in speech that is broadcast. However, there are still many who in 2020 use the old way of counting in everyday speech. The young people under the age of 25 use almost exclusively the new counting method, but among the elderly there are an increasing number who use the old counting method with increasing age.

In most languages ​​in Norway's neighboring countries (Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic) and English, the tens before the singular are said in such compound numbers; while Danish and Faroese say the singular before the ten like German and Dutch. When the number is written down with the decimal first and the singular number afterwards, it can be wrong if the pronunciation is reversed. In 1997, Tor Guttu of the Riksmålsforbundets referred to the old way of counting as a national language and the new way of counting as a book language.

In bingo halls, it has been common for such numbers to be read out using both the old and the new counting methods.

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