Numbers, time and dates

Two things here work differently enough to be worth warning about before the list starts. German says two-digit numbers back to front: einundzwanzig is "one-and-twenty", and it is written as one word. English did the same until a few centuries ago — "four and twenty blackbirds" — so the pattern is not foreign, only retired. And the clock counts towards the coming hour rather than away from the last one. Halb drei is half past two, not half past three: it is half way to three. Getting this wrong costs an hour, which is why it is worth more attention than its two words suggest.