The French have solved all the world's problems!

Shintaro Ishihara Governor of Tokyo

Saw this hilarious little news story about the governor of Tokyo Japan, Shintaro Ishihara. He is being sued by some French language students because they claim he insulted the French language. He is reported to have said "French is a failed international language because it cannot be used to count numbers."

In French, some numbers can be unwieldy to say, such as 90, which translates as "four-twenty-ten."

But English can be difficult too. But it is not has bad as other languages!

For example, where did Eleven and Twelve come from? Shouldn't eleven be "oneteen", and twelve be "twoteen". The rest of the teens are the single digit number and the syllable "teen" (for "and ten").

And what does the "ty" mean on twenty, thirty, forty, ..., ninety? Does that mean "times 10"?

Still... Those French lovers must have some mighty thin skin to have to resort to law suits when someone insults their precious language. The world's going to hell in a handbasket and they are worried that someone in Japan doesn't like French.

Well. I guess having solved all the world's problems, they can focus time and energy on stupid things like this.