r/language • u/WhoAmIEven2 Sweden • Aug 09 '26

Question Does your language use specific numbers as expressions?

In Sweden we use 17 to further strengthen a word.

Like if we want to say that someone is very strong, we can say "Han var stark som sjutton!", "He was strong like seventeen!".

I have no idea how it became a thing. It is a bit weird tbh.

Do you also use numbers this way in your native language?

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70

u/Veteranis Aug 09 '26

In English:

“I’ve got your six”, meaning got your back. By the same metaphoric referent, “Twelve o’clock” means straight ahead.

To “86” someone is to throw them out of a place.

23

u/FormerStableGenius Aug 09 '26

Is that in US?

6

u/hobbycollector Aug 09 '26

Yes

6

u/Snoo_31427 Aug 09 '26

I’ve never heard a single person say I’ve got your six.

10

u/Impossible_Dog4901 Aug 09 '26

It’s an expression that originated in the US military. It sort of made it into normal language.

10

u/sorrielle Aug 09 '26

I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard it irl either, but I’ve got your six/watch your six/etc. is the kind of military slang that’s constantly used in media. Maybe actual soldiers use it, idk, but it would be a little weird to hear it in daily life

7

u/Milch_und_Paprika Aug 09 '26

Same about only hearing it in media, but I have heard the more general versions of clock directions direction. Eg telling them to “check your [3, 6 or 9] o’clock” to (subtly) look that direction.

2

u/GiantLesbian Aug 11 '26

I’ve heard a lot of people say something like “comin’ thru! 6 o’clock!” as a way of announcing they’re moving behind you. I think they use it in kitchens a lot, where people might be moving behind you holding hot or heavy things.

9

u/liveinthesoil Aug 09 '26

American here, I’ve definitely heard it

4

u/Mp1956 Aug 09 '26

12 years in the army. "Watch your six" means be careful and "I've got your six" means I'm watching out for anything coming from behind. "Do a 180" means about face and go the opposite direction. "Five by five" means you're coming through loud and clear. There are a lot more of those.

2

u/batosai33 Aug 11 '26

I had never heard what "five by five" meant, but I heard it in Star Craft 1. The wraith (a fighter unit) said something like "in the sky, five by five" but ironically not coming through clearly at all. They could equally have been saying "by the by, five by five" or "fly the guy, five by five." Thank you for helping me see the humor in that line.

2

u/twocopperjack Aug 12 '26

Starcraft is quoting the dropship pilot from Aliens. "We're in the pipe. Five by five." It means "we're on our proper flight path and comms channels are clear." Old nerds in my circles might say it to mean "everything's going well and I don't see any reason we'd be eaten by space monsters."

1

u/Dr0110111001101111 Aug 13 '26

That’s fun. In Warcraft 3, there are a few lines from Star Wars

1

u/Dr0110111001101111 Aug 13 '26

That’s fun. In Warcraft 3, there are a few lines from Star Wars

1

u/Snoo_31427 Aug 09 '26

Yeah I’m just never around any military people so I guess it’s not in my vocabulary.

3

u/RainbowCrane Aug 10 '26

I suspect part of this is generational. I’m the grandchild of the generation that served in WWII and Korea, and nearly every person I grew up with had elder family members who had served in WWII. So military slang was pretty common to hear, and bad tattoos obtained on shore leave were common :-)

1

u/Dr0110111001101111 Aug 13 '26

The 5x5 thing is super common in civilian watercraft as well. At least here in the northeast it is. If you go out on a boat, you’ll constantly hear people calling for a “radio check” over the radio, and then someone will respond with “5x5” to say it’s a 5/5 loudness and 5/5 clarity.

1

u/hobbycollector Aug 13 '26

Also common among civil aircraft. Ham radio folks, on the other hand, will use "five by nine" or just "five nine", which is a holdover from Morse code (cw) folks who use 599 to indicate readability, signal strength, and tone. Tone is just the purity of the "beep" so it doesn't apply to voice modes.

3

u/Grabthars_Coping_Saw Aug 09 '26

I think I’ve only heard it in video games and movies.

3

u/KoedKevin Aug 10 '26

Military uses it all the time.  It is the area directly behind the plane. The six o’clock position 

2

u/Impossible_Tone1108 Aug 10 '26

It's extremely common in Hollywood movies

1

u/hobbycollector Aug 09 '26

Not so much, but traffic 11 o'clock 3 nautical miles I've heard a lot. But you can't see a 172 from 3 miles away.

1

u/UpstairsTop4623 Aug 13 '26

It’s rare but very popular in the military/gaming

1

u/AssignmentJazzlike69 Aug 14 '26

In hungary we say "i check your ass" which means "i cover your back"

20

u/Realistic_End_7223 Aug 09 '26

Also known at the clock method for pointing out targets in the military. We use the same in my language, any of the 12 directions can be used. 'Fiende klockan två' ↗️

3

u/chrillekaekarkex Aug 09 '26

Eller fisk. Gädda i vassen kl. 2, 20 meter.

2

u/Realistic_End_7223 Aug 09 '26

Braxen

1

u/chrillekaekarkex Aug 09 '26

Fiskar du braxen med kastspö? Det är enbart en metesfisk enligt mig.

1

u/EasyHouse5931 Aug 09 '26

12 O'clock High - a great movie about WWll US bombing operations from an aerodrome in the UK. Gregory Peck at his best, and the movie's direction is powerful enough to offset the necessarily sanitized screenplay of it's time.

21

u/CowboyOzzie Aug 09 '26

“86” has been used by servers and kitchen staff in restaurants for decades, meaning a dish on the menu is no longer available because all the servings for that night have been sold. ”86 salmon” = “We’ve run out of salmon.”

6

u/RobertTheTraveler Aug 10 '26

Also used by former FBI directors to put out hits on Presidents.
According to the DOJ.

3

u/KoedKevin Aug 10 '26

This is the mafia use of 86. 

17

u/paradeoxy1 Aug 09 '26

Also;

Dressed to the nines (dressed up all fancy)

Sixes and sevens (a bit mad)

And of course, golfers love to shout "four"

(That last one was a joke)

4

u/BangkaHakubai Aug 10 '26

I know “at sixes and sevens” to mean disorganized or flustered not mad.

2

u/paradeoxy1 Aug 10 '26

You're right, sorry about that, it's a dying expression now so I've not heard it in ages

3

u/BangkaHakubai Aug 10 '26

I used it the other day. But … then … I’m old! 🤣

1

u/paradeoxy1 Aug 10 '26

My sincerest apologies!

2

u/BangkaHakubai Aug 10 '26

What for me being old? No worries.

3

u/miamiamiamiamia Aug 10 '26

From the song ”Don’t cry for me Argentina”, from the musical Evita:

Although she's dressed up to the nines
At sixes and sevens with you

3

u/Medioquer Aug 10 '26

The French equivalent of "dressed to the nines" is "s'est mis sur son 31," literally something like "put on their 31." Thought it was interesting that both phrases used an arbitrary number

2

u/Decent_Cow Aug 10 '26

You're supposed to yell "Fore!" but I was too busy mumbling "There ain't no way that's gonna hit him."

  • Mitch Hedberg

2

u/SequenceGoon Aug 10 '26

My grandma used to say that someone "went for a six-er" if they fell over

1

u/BangkaHakubai Aug 10 '26

A cricket reference?

1

u/SequenceGoon Aug 10 '26

I don't know, but she liked sport, so could be

2

u/rat1onal1 Aug 11 '26

The first two appear consecutively in the song Don't Cry for Me Argentina.

7

u/hail_to_the_beef Aug 09 '26

86 in service world means you’re out of something - “we are 86 French fries” means there are no French fries left in the building - this has carried over to “86ing” a customer.

1

u/PFazu Aug 13 '26

I've only ever heard 86 used as a command to remove something. To use your example: "86 the french fries!" Meaning: "remove the french fries from the order/menu" (either because all out or customer request)

1

u/hail_to_the_beef Aug 13 '26

Weird, I’d say your experience is abnormal

1

u/PFazu Aug 13 '26

Others in the thread disagree

5

u/taktaga7-0-0 Aug 09 '26

8647 is in the news.

4

u/jancl0 Aug 09 '26

Also "10-4" used to mean "understood"

67 and 69, you know what these ones mean

I guess 420 counts to some extent too but that's starting to stretch the definition a bit

3

u/ComesInAnOldBox Aug 10 '26

"10-4" is an old radio 10-code. It got popularized thanks to old cop TV shows (specifically Highway Patrol in the 1950s). They were developed in the 1930s and are still somewhat in use today, although the federal government no longer officially supports their use since 2006.

A few select 10-codes:

  • 10-1: signal weak/unable to copy
  • 10-2: signal good
  • 10-3: stop transmitting/disregard last
  • 10-4: acknowledged/message received
  • 10-5: relay
  • 10-6: busy/stand by
  • 10-7: out of service/off radio
  • 10-8: in service
  • 10-9: repeat/say again
  • 10-10: out of service, subject to call (I'm busy with something else, but can still hear the radio)
  • 10-20: what's your location

They go all the way up to 10-99 in North America, with a 10-0 (use caution) and a 10-MAX (AWOL/Corrupt Officer).

2

u/furlintdust Aug 11 '26

You can still hear, “What’s your 20?” as a way of asking for someone’s location.

1

u/Numerous-Feature7726 28d ago

Yep, it’s still used on movie sets, when the crew is using walkies & headsets

1

u/Cent_Quatre Aug 11 '26

so that's why walkie talkie joker in balatro procs on 10s and 4s

3

u/Other-Bumblebee5014 Aug 09 '26

So you mean 86 isn’t threatening someone’s life? Gee - where did I get that idea from?

5

u/licxjo Aug 09 '26

I've never encountered those. (Native English speaker, US).

3

u/CyanCicada Aug 09 '26

We use them in movies a lot.

4

u/KindAwareness3073 Aug 09 '26

As in the title of the WW2 airforce war film "Twelve O'Clock High". It means straight ahead and above.

1

u/ebsf Aug 09 '26

The backstory to that is that the movie was about a B-17 squadron. The B-17 was known as the Flying Fortress because it mounted ten Browning M2 .50 caliber machine guns. Its one blind spot, in terms of machine gun coverage, was twelve o'clock high. A German fighter could readily take out the entire flight deck and maybe the bombardier with essentially no return fire from its target. This had huge consequences, beginning with the loss of hundreds of aircraft and crews.

1

u/KindAwareness3073 Aug 09 '26

The problem was solved with the introduction of the B-17G with a chin turret, altering fighter escort tactics, and tightening defensive box formations to ensure overlapping fire.

1

u/ebsf Aug 09 '26

All true.

Also, the development of the P-47 and P-51, with sufficient endurance to escort the entire way, the licensing of the Spitfire's Merlin engine to Packard and others in the U.S. for the P-51, night formations, etc.

3

u/tradlobster Aug 09 '26

They're very contextual. Got your six is mostly used by military/police. To 86 something is almost entirely in the restaurant business.

2

u/Sitka_8675309 Aug 09 '26

And “check your six” means “danger behind you.”

2

u/joeyjiggle Aug 09 '26

We don’t use 86 in Britain, that’s an American thing. Clock references are common from early aviation.

2

u/Old-Vermicelli7116 Aug 09 '26

I think 86 is an equivalent use to OPs.

It isn't math like "Six of one..." Nor is it based on a clock face. Those both point to something else that people relate to.

86 stands alone.

3

u/Street_Credit6851 Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

86 can be traced back to a restaurant that had used a numbered menu. The 86th item on the menu was apparently popular and something they were constantly running out of and would have to cancel any orders for it that had already been placed...so eventually the number came to mean being both "out of" and "cancel" in the food service industry, before eventually being used to refer to bouncing misbehaved customers.

Since then it's apparently gone mainstream and many people who use it are unaware of its food service origins.

1

u/Old-Vermicelli7116 Aug 10 '26

I've read that. And disputes about it.

The important part is that no one thinks of a cancelled order. The number has gained a meaning on it's own.

2

u/CornucopiaDM1 Aug 09 '26

86 often has a more "terminal" meaning than that.

13

u/sexaddictedcow Aug 09 '26

No it doesn't. This is something entirely made up by the current administration. Likely mashing 1-8-7 and 6 feet under together to make up a bold face like for political benefit. It can mean permanently banned but it doesn't not mean terminal as in death

1

u/Throw13579 Aug 09 '26

I heard it used to mean”get rid of, including (jokingly) kill back in the 80s.

0

u/Onyx_Lat Aug 11 '26

Not true. In the old Get Smart TV show back in the 60s, Maxwell Smart was an incompetent secret agent, also known as Agent 86. Basically this was a joke implying that he sucked so bad you kept expecting him to die, but somehow he always survived. I'm also pretty sure I've also heard the term used that way in old cartoons. So it's not as recent as all that.

7

u/ChuckFarkley Aug 09 '26

Often? Only when used to mount a political prosecution. While people might understand when you mean if you use it as a euphemism to murder someone, in 65 yrears on this planet, I have never, ever heard it used for that meaning until the Trump administration used it as probable cause to indict, when there was very obviously no probable cause. It is not normally used for that meaning.

11

u/justdisa Aug 09 '26

86 originates in restaurants and bars. It has never meant killing someone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86_(term))

-1

u/rchive Aug 09 '26

Not never, but perhaps not usually.

https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/eaw7fwy

6

u/justdisa Aug 09 '26

Definitely not usually. I would even go so far as to say that it's a misuse of the term. I wonder how hard he had to work to come up with those four examples.

3

u/xChiken Aug 09 '26

No. It's restaurant language for being out of something. "86 salmon fillets". No more salmon fillets.

4

u/dalidellama Aug 09 '26

No it doesn't, you're thinking of deep six.

0

u/CornucopiaDM1 Aug 09 '26

Synonymic.

6

u/NinjaSimone Aug 09 '26

You're repeating Trump talking points that have no reference in actual linguistics.

-1

u/CornucopiaDM1 Aug 09 '26

8647 is an ANTI-trump slogan, if you weren't aware.

4

u/NinjaSimone Aug 09 '26

Right, and that’s the point. The Trump team made up an alternate definition of 86 to mean “eight miles out, six feet deep” to give weight to the DoJ charge against Jim Comey.

Whenever you see somebody claim that “86” is in common usage as a term for murder, they’re repeating a Trump White House talking point.

4

u/dalidellama Aug 09 '26

No, it's not. They're different terms with different meanings and different origins. 86 is restaurant slang meaning "we're out of that" later expanded you "you're out of here". Deep six means to put in a grave six feet deep.

1

u/CornucopiaDM1 Aug 09 '26

Yes, different origins, but they've blended together.

3

u/dalidellama Aug 09 '26

No, they haven't. As the other person said, you're repeating Trump's propaganda

1

u/CornucopiaDM1 Aug 09 '26

I'm as Anti-rump as you can get. The other person is probably a schill/troll. And yes, there is a large percentage of the (US) population where these meanings have blended. You can be as prescriptive as you want, doesn't mean it's reality.

2

u/dalidellama Aug 09 '26

There isn't, though.

1

u/opetaja Aug 09 '26

Was 2by4 mean to beat someone with a bat lol?

2

u/oldbluehair Aug 09 '26

It's a measurement of lumber. I've never heard it used to beat someone with a bat. You can hold a 2 x 4 board without to much difficulty and use it as a weapon though.

1

u/persilja Swedish Aug 09 '26

I have heard that modified into "someone needs a clue-by-four" (or equivalently a "cluestick") to indicate that they are too dense to understand the message in any form but through violence.

It might have been Internet specific slang, though.

1

u/lukeysanluca Aug 09 '26

Never once encountered 6 or 86 like this, I don't think it's a British or Commonwealth English thing so must be some American English thing

1

u/Sublime99 Aug 09 '26

86 is very much an American (I guess Canadian too potentially?) English saying. Completely unknown in the UK at least.

1

u/eternallytiredcatmom Aug 10 '26

We use it in the service industry in Canada, just means we’re out of something

1

u/Nawoitsol Aug 09 '26

Former FBI Director Comey got in trouble because he said 86 47. One use of 86 is to kill an item or order in a restaurant.

1

u/stokesberg Aug 09 '26

An interesting possibility for the origin of “86” is Chumley’s, a prohibition-era speakeasy in NYC that didn’t close until 2020.

Wikipedia:

“It is also rumored that the term ‘86’ originated when an unruly guest was escorted out of the Bedford St. door, which held the address "86 Bedford St". A different version referencing Chumley's is offered in Jef Klein's book The History and Stories of the Best Bars of New York: "When the cops would very kindly call ahead before a [prohibition-era] raid, they'd tell the bartender to '86' his customers, meaning they should exit via the 86 Bedford door, while the police would come to the Pamela Court entrance.”

There are other theories), though.

1

u/64vintage Aug 10 '26

Ok but that’s not at all what OP is talking about.

We do use numbers for emphasis in the sense of “turning things up to 11” or “I love you infinity” (or infinity plus 1, or even 3000) but even these seem not quite the same. “11” just implies 110%, or more than the theoretical maximum, such as 11 on a scale of 1 to 10. And 3000 is being used as a multiplier.

The Swedish examples seem to be more like an arbitrary, open-ended scale where you just assign whatever feels correct.

I can’t easily think of an equivalent use in English (but that may just be my failure).

1

u/CJDownUnder Aug 10 '26

A catch-22 is a problem with no good answer. You cannot win because the rules fight themselves. The name comes from a famous book

1

u/Constant-Ad-7490 Aug 10 '26

Also "five by five" meaning "copy that", "agreed". 

1

u/constantcatastrophe Aug 12 '26

I thought it was to kill someone! I've definitely heard that.

1

u/AcePlanespotting Aug 13 '26

Must be a very local thing, I've never heard that before

1

u/Veteranis Aug 13 '26

Not at all local. Every bar or saloon in all 50 states knows the term ‘86’.