Numbers and time

French numbers are ordinary up to sixty and then change method: seventy is soixante-dix, sixty-ten, and eighty is quatre-vingts, four-twenties. This is not a joke and not a regional habit but the standard in France, and it is worth knowing that English used to do the same thing. « Four score and seven years ago » counts in twenties exactly as quatre-vingt-sept does, and « threescore years and ten » is soixante-dix word for word. English kept the twenties only in old texts and let the tens win everywhere else; French did the opposite and kept the twenties in the everyday numbers. Days and months are written in lower case in French, as in Spanish and unlike in English.