Anu Garg at A Word A Day posted this story of an upcoming mayoral election in the small town of Völklingen, Germany (near the French border, south of Belgium), wherein one of the candidates gave a spectacularly bad answer to a question in a recent debate.
Representative Uwe Faust of the political party Die Partei jokingly asked, “According to the building code, paragraph 126, each owner is obliged to label his property with the number given by the municipality. I find it alarming that in Völklingen many house numbers are displayed in Arabic numerals. How would you like to take action against this creeping foreigner infiltration?”
To which Otfried Best, running with the far-right NPD party, fell for the joke, replying, "You just wait until I am mayor. I will change that. Then there will be normal numbers."
Mr. Best apparently does not know what Arabic numerals are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @01:49PM (2 children)
Yes, well, what numerals should Germanic peoples use? I happen to be of Germanic descent, and I've been forced to use Arabic numerals my entire life! Though granted I haven't given the Eastern Arabic numerals a spin, but it's still not Germanic! What's the alternative? Roman numerals?! People called Romanes they go the house! Base 60 Babylonian? All foreigners!
I propose an initiative to create a truly Germanic numeral system. We could base it off fuþark!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 12 2017, @03:13PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentimal_system [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Wednesday September 13 2017, @07:26AM
Given that Germany was the heart of the Holy Roman Empire [wikipedia.org], Roman numerals should be quite acceptable.