From: "Gregg N" 

Gary Wiltshire wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 13:55:40 -0500, Robert Comer
>  wrote:
>
>>> WRONG!  10octal is not "ten" it is "eight."
>>
>> WRONG!!! 10 octal is ten octal unless you convert it to base10.
>
> 10 octal is not called "ten."  It is usually read as
"one-zero."  We
> also call that "eight."
>>
>>> Then why do we have words like "eleven" or
"twelve", Genius?
>>
>> Why do we have words like door and car, same reason, Genious.
>
> Non sequitur, Ginoeus.
>
> My point is that we do have single words for multi-digits numbers like
> eleven and twelve.  There is not reason that 10octal can't be called
> "eight."
>
>>
>>> Would you feel better if we called it "boogabooga?"  Your
>>> hypothetical other language would also not have the words
"one",
>>> "two", or "three" either.
>>
>> Actually, yes, (I suggested forkel before...)
>>
>> - Bob Comer

Our number names reflect our commonly used decimal radix (you thought I was
going to say base ten). For example, we have twenties, thirties, etc. This
is out of convenience so we can base our names on simple rules rather than
having truely unique names like five, six, seven even for large numbers (we
would need zillions of names). However, our common number names use
decimal-based rules.

If we were to switch to a hex base, we could choose hex-based rules for
choosing our number names. To avoid confusion with the decimal names we
could choose altogether different names, or we could use the same decimal
names, with a "hex" prefix or suffix. This is what is commonly
done.

Most people read 0x23 as hex-twenty-three, or twenty-three-hex, not as
thirty-five. Both are correct, if you consider the "-hex" part of
the name.

Gregg

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