Choosing a Base
My inspiration for this project was the dozenal word for <100>, "gross". I thought this was a really bad name, since it's, well, gross. That reminded me of how a tip for finding domain names is to just use really awful gross words and they'll usually be available. And then I thought: "hey what if I make the worst numbering system possible, by making it really confusing, but also just use really vile words to describe it"
And that's what this is going to be. Should be fun. First thing's first: what base are we using? I made this tierlist to rank all the bases 1-16DEC, and I'll be using it as a guide since I forget which ones are the worst. Elevenary is at the bottom, and it seems like a good choice. It's a revolting base.
Symbol Set
The symbols are a great way to screw up. It's harder for the brain to assign new meaning to old ideas than it is to learn new things, [citation needed] so let's use the arabic numerals but all jumbled up. But that would be a little boring, so I'm gonna throw in some random overly detailed symbols, that are all very similar. This is what I came up with.
4, 6, and 9 are all very similar, with differences so minor they need to be pointed out. Ten is a phage like and 8 is an emoji. They stick out so hard, it's amazing. Let's look at some numbers to see how awful it is already.
<24> = 55
<55> = 24
<2
> = 59
<62> = 16
<
> = 50
Wow, these are deeply terrible!
Divisibility Tests (or lack there of)
Here's some things to remember about a base: easy last digit divisibility tests are based on the factors. We're really used to even bases, but it's actually not a given that a base can tell if a number is even. Only even bases can do that. The only easy divisibility test in elevenary is... by eleven. Of course. It's prime, after all. So if a number ends in <4> (zero), it's divisible by eleven.
What about harder divisibility tests? Well the second easiest divisibility test is by adding all the digits together, and then looking at the factors of b-1. So in this case, b-1 is 10 and 10 is divisible by 2 and 5, so to check if a number is even, you can add up all the digits and check if that number is even. You still have to just memorize elevenary evens though. You have to memorize the multiples of two up to (b-1) * d where d is the length of the number in digits, and b is the base.
Same thing works for five. Let's take the number 20DEC for example, in elevenary it's 19ELV (converting from base 10 to base 11 is really easy since they're right next to each other).
1 + 9 is X, and X is divisible by 5 so it's divisible by 5, and it's divisible by
2 so it's divisible by 2! Oh, and in disgustimal 19ELV is 6
. Yeah, that's why I stick to using the normal numbers when explaining elevenary.
Remember: elevenary is base 11DEC, while disgustimal is specifically elevenary with this freaky
symbol set and stuff.
Let's Make Things Worse
"This is just elevenary with a shitty symbol set." -you
Let's fix this. First up is digit groupings. In decimal, we group by threes. Like XX,XXX,XXX. The groupings are based on the least significant digit, if they were based on the most significant digit it would look like this: XXX,XXX,XX. So how will disgustimal group digits?
By going back to its prime roots of course! Starting from the least significant digit, work your way to the left adding commas after every primeth digit. So like a 4 digit number will be written as X,X,XX because there's a comma after the second and third digit of the number (from the right). You may be asking:
"why not go from the most significant digit? That would make it uglier and harder to use." And to that I say, it's fun to add just a hint of usability into shitty systems like this. It makes them almost tempting to use, like a cleverly "disguised" trap. And with the primes, there's almost a beauty to it.
All the best terrible systems have hidden beauties. As my friend masela has said: "kitchen sinking* subtracts from the artistic value of cursedness." In my opinion, a few cleverly designed terrible systems are always funnier and prettier than shit spam.
*kitchen sinking means spamming a bunch of random dumb stuff, or what I call shit spam.
Next let's look at fractions. Every single fraction is recurring except 1/11. I would say you have to write 1/11 as <0.0XXXX...>, but it's so easy to ignore there's no point.
Something I can enforce however is recurring notation. In my binary system fractions are written with a period to mark the radix point, and an apostrophe to mark where the recurring starts. I wish decimal would do this as overlines are impossible to type, so I usually do 0.333... or 0.333. 0.'3 would be sooo nice. So uh, none of that. You have to do the ellipsis thing.
Lastly is negatives. To show a negative number, you write the number upside down. It's not rotated 180 degrees where you can just turn the paper, it's vertically flipped to be maximally difficult to use.
Verbal System
"How do I say/type these numbers?" -you
I'm glad you asked! The worst and simplest way to read numbers is digit by digit. A slightly better method is to read every digit followed by a name for its place, skipping it if its a zero or the ones column. These work better in larger bases. Let's do the second one, even though elevenary isn't particularly large.
As said in the beginning, I want disgustimal to be cursed and of course disgusting. I want reading numbers to
make you conjure up horrible images. Let's start with the ones place, or the digits themselves. Use the
plural or singular form of these words at your own discretion, whichever you think sounds better. (Or worse,
if you want!) You can change any of the derivational forms of these words, like 15DEC in
disgustimal is 6,
and is "contagious pedophiles", but I think "contagious pedophilia" is much better because that's a
hilariously terrifying concept.
These tables keep getting weird formatting issues. Shift reload a couple times if they look weird. The numbers are in order, zero to ten, but they are written in disgustimal.
| 4 | corpse |
| 6 | cancer |
| 5 | slavery |
| 9 | carrion |
|
pedophiles |
| 2 | maggots |
|
malaria |
| 7 | vomit |
| 😞 | bigotry |
|
torture |
 |
murderers |
These don't sound like numbers in the slightest, which means I'm on the right track! Next let's do the elevens place. I tried to make these fit as best as I could, but not all of them work unfortunately.
| 64 | Contagious |
| 54 | Awful |
| 94 | Unending |
| 4 |
Infected |
| 24 | Violent |
| 4 |
Lots of |
| 74 | Obnoxious |
| 😞4 | Rotting |
| 4 |
Terrifying |
| 4 |
Wretched |
You may have noticed that these don't work great on their own. When the number ends in 0 or <4>, you speak the name for zero, "corpse". This is like saying "fifty zero" in decimal. It's only done here because they don't sound great on their own. So eleven would be contagious corpse, twenty two would be awful corpse, thirty three would be unending corpse, which doesn't make any sense, but whatever.
I can't make another eleven words that will fit with all of these, so let's group things into twos. This will make things extra difficult, as where the commas are is based on primes, and the pronunciation is based on twos. It will actively hinder you from grouping them independently in your head, muhuhhahahaaha!
Now we just need names for every power of eleven squared.
| 6,44 | Failure(s) |
| 64,4,44 | Tragedy(ies) |
| 64,44,4,44 | Calamity(ies) |
| 64,44,44,4,44 | Genocide(s) |
| 6444,44,44,4,44 | Extinction(s) |
| 64,4444,44,44,4,44 | Minor Spelling Mistake(s) |
So just to clarify: When you take a disgustimal number, let's use 6,,27 for this example, you group it into twos. (Mentally, you're not allowed to
write out the number like that, the punishment is death) and pronounce each two digit pair like its on its
own, followed by the power of 121DEC its associated with. Kind of like decimal does, but with
powers of 1000DEC.
6,,27 would be pronounced "contagious pedophilia failures
and violent vomit." Wow. Truly disgusting.
Examples
Now that we've made disgustimal, let's use it. Starting with some numbers. The powers of two, then the highly composites, and finally some primes.
| Decimal | Elevenary | Disgustimal | Disgustimal Written |
| 16 | 15 | 62 | Contagious Maggots |
| 32 | 2X | 5 |
Awful Murderers |
| 64 | 59 | 2 |
Violent Torture |
| 128 | 107 | 6,47 | Cancer Failure and Vomit |
| 256 | 213 | 5,69 | Slavery Failures and Contagious Carrion |
| 512 | 426 | ,5 |
Pedophilic Failures and Awful Malaria |
| 12 | 11 | 66 | Contagious Cancer |
| 24 | 22 | 55 | Awful Slavery |
| 36 | 33 | 99 | Unending Carrion |
| 48 | 44 | |
Infected Pedophiles |
| 60 | 55 | 22 | Violent Maggots |
| 120 | XX | |
Wretched Murderers |
| 180 | 154 | 6,2 |
Cancer Failure and Violent Pedophiles |
| 240 | 1X9 | 6, |
Cancer Failure and Wretched Torture |
| 360 | 2X8 | 5,😞 |
Slavery Failures and Wretched Bigotry |
| 5040 | 3872 | 9,😞,75 | Unending Bigotry Failures and Obnoxious Slavery |
| 11 | 10 | 64 | Contagious Corpse |
| 13 | 12 | 65 | Contagious Slavery |
| 17 | 16 | 6 |
Contagious Malaria |
| 19 | 18 | 6😞 | Contagious Bigotry |
| 23 | 21 | 56 | Awful Cancer |
| 47 | 43 | 9 |
Infected Carrion |
I sincerely apologize for spending malaria () hours making
this. (That's slavery failures and wretched bigotry minutes)